How Braided Communications ran a complex longitudinal study to improve communications for spaceflight missions
Braided Communications is a Scottish space startup run by co founders, Drew Smithsimmons and Rob Brougham. They have two objectives. The first is to provide tools for more effective human communication during spaceflight missions to the Moon and Mars. The second is to facilitate more effective workplace collaboration on Earth.
The task
National and private spaces agencies are currently planning crewed missions to Mars. The distances involved will create a time delay in human communication between the crew and Earth.
From Mars to Earth, this time delay will range between 4 and 22 minutes one-way, depending on the relative position of the planets. It presents significant operational challenges and has a major impact on crew health and performance.
Braided Communication’s research is some of the first in the world to investigate that impact.
The challenge
Having been awarded a research grant from the UK Space Agency, Braided immediately had two problems to solve.
Firstly, how to recruit suitable participants at speed and, secondly, how to recruit at least 150 participants in order to power the study optimally.
They also only had a 3-month window between ethics being granted and the deadline for project completion. During this time they needed to run the pilot and complete the main data collection.
They then needed to manage this size of population in multiple waves coming through three phases in a complex longitudinal study, involving multiple technical platforms and a significant volume of communication with each participant. In order to get a large enough sample size, they needed as many participants as possible to complete all the stages.
I just wanted to extend my thanks for having me on the study. It is honestly one of the most enjoyable longitudinal studies I have in. The organisation, execution and communication has been second to none.
The solution
Using Prolific, Braided recruited 267 participants, using detailed eligibility filters, in a pilot and four main cohorts, taking on average around 3.5 hours to recruit a group of 50 participants. This speed of recruitment gave the team much more breathing space to run the study itself.
The study required each participant to complete online training, a week of daily baseline measurement on a digital health platform and, working in pairs, two weeks to engage in time-delayed communication experiments using two of Braided’s digital spaceflight communication tools.
The robust messaging and payments functionality on Prolific’s platform were really important for helping support each participant through every stage of the study, and pay them in a timely manner, answering any and all questions along the way.
This was fundamental in successfully retaining as many participants as possible through the baseline measurement week and the experimental fortnight despite the complexity of the tasks they were to complete.
The results
The research data has been written up into a final report submitted to the UK Space Agency, and the project successfully completed, but has not yet been submitted for review in a peer-reviewed journal.
Braided found that collaborative problem-solving under spaceflight conditions of time-delayed communication was faster when using a novel communication tool called Space Braiding (the experimental group), compared to current practices (the control group).
As shown in the figure below, 72% of participant pairs were faster using Space Braiding and completed a key task (T5) 19% faster on average. They did so without any indication of increased effort or increased fatigue.
Variance in T5 for pairs that achieved T5 in both countries
Additionally this project strengthened Braided’s working relationship with the UK Space Agency and with the academic partner, University College London. It has also opened up opportunities for further research into this crucial but, as yet, under-investigated field.
Braided will be shortly returning Prolific to test a terrestrial application of braiding to make team meetings on Earth more effective, particularly with reference to accommodating the communication styles of introverted and neurodivergent people in the workplace.
