Training Safe and Effective Spaceflight Operations Using Terrestrial Analogues

In the absence of short-term spaceflight opportunities, astronauts find themselves involved in long term flights as their first exposure to space operations, within multicultural crews with which they have rarely spent more than a few consecutive hours together. This has prompted space agencies to identify opportunities for terrestrial analogue training events which foster expeditionary behavior and increase operational safety and efficiency. These training events shall recreate situations that are spaceflight analogue in terms of perception of risk, crew composition, isolation, confinement and at the same time provide a real opportunity for spaceflight-like operations, science, equipment testing, and exploration, in preparation of future planetary endeavours.