Psychological Selection of Female Space Flight Participant (SFP) Candidates.

Abstract

A call for a female German space flight participant to accompany a space flight crew for about ten days while conducting research activities was launched in 2016. The core goal was to encourage women for so-called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) jobs. The German Aerospace Center DLR was responsible for the psychological and medical selection process. Due to extreme environmental challenges and public interest, the psychological requirements were on a comparatively high level and wide in variety: Besides basic cognitive requirements and personality factors, team and media competencies were considered. The selection campaign for the first German female space flight participant was carried out in 2016 and conducted in two steps: Phase 1 concentrated mainly on performance tests, while in phase 2 personality and interactive tests as well as a semi-structured interview were carried out. Out of 81 tested candidates 8 candidates were recommended based on the psychological assessment. In a comparison with a female European astronaut candidate sample, significant differences in personality traits were observed.