Transforming Mission Control into an Agentic Workflow for Future xEVA

Abstract

Future human exploration of Mars faces a critical operational barrier: communication latencies of 3 to 22 minutes will sever the real-time feedback loop between the crew and Earth-based Mission Control Center (MCC), rendering traditional “over-the-shoulder” guidance impossible during Extravehicular Activities (EVA). Building on our prior RASAGE (Retrieval & Simulation Augmented Guidance Agent for Exploration) work, we propose an onboard, multi-agent architecture that replicates key MCC console functions and their information pathways while operating under edge power, memory, and latency limits. This system decomposes the monolithic MCC structure into specialized agents, including the Flight Director, CAPCOM, and Systems Specialists, integrated with a Hybrid Retrieval-Augmented Generation with dedicated knowledge graph framework. To mitigate hallucination risks, the architecture employs deterministic tool use grounded in the NASA Crew State & Risk Model (CSRM), ensuring physiological validity and traceability to flight rules. System reasoning and orchestration are executed with Gemini 2.0 Flash to enable low-latency, long-context inference suitable for edge deployment, while evaluation uses Claude Opus 4.5 as an evidence-checking judge for long-horizon verification against source documentation. We validated the system by reconstructing the Apollo 14 EVA missions with a knowledge graph derived from over 50 historical mission documents. Across a benchmark of 244 operational queries, the system achieved an overall pass rate of 78.7%, with 94.6% accuracy on procedural inquiries and a hallucination rate below 0.4%. These results demonstrate the feasibility of transforming centralized ground support into a resilient, autonomous partner capable of safeguarding crew during high-latency planetary exploration.