Sleep deprivation and circadian rhythm disruptions are highly prevalent in shift workers, and also among astronauts. Resulting sleepiness can reduce cognitive performance, lead to catastrophic occupational events, and jeopardize space missions. We investigated whether 24 hours of total sleep deprivation would affect performance not only in the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT), but also in a complex operational task, i.e. simulated manual spacecraft docking. Sixty-two healthy participants completed the manual docking simulation 6df and the PVT once after a night of total sleep deprivation and once after eight hours of scheduled sleep in a counterbalanced order. We assessed the impact of sleep deprivation on docking as well as PVT performance and investigated if sustained attention is an essential component of operational performance after sleep loss. The results showed that docking accuracy decreased significantly after sleep deprivation in comparison to the control condition, but only at difficult task levels. PVT performance deteriorated under sleep deprivation. Participants with larger impairments in PVT response speed after sleep deprivation also showed larger impairments in docking accuracy. In conclusion, sleep deprivation led to impaired 6df performance, which was partly explained by impairments in sustained attention. Elevated motivation levels due to the novelty and attractiveness of the task may have helped participants to compensate for the effects of sleepiness at easier task levels. Continued testing of manual docking skills could be a useful tool both to detect sleep loss-related impairments and assess astronauts’ readiness for duty during long-duration missions.

睡眠不足和昼夜节律紊乱在轮班工人和宇航员中非常普遍。由此产生的困倦会降低认知能力，导致灾难性的职业事件，并危及太空任务。我们研究了 24 小时完全睡眠剥夺是否不仅会影响精神运动警戒任务(PVT) 的表现，还会影响复杂的操作任务（即模拟手动航天器对接）的表现。62 名健康参与者完成了手动对接模拟6df和 PVT，一次是在一晚完全睡眠不足后完成，一次是在八小时预定睡眠后按平衡顺序完成。我们评估了睡眠不足对对接以及 PVT 表现的影响，并调查了持续注意力是否是睡眠不足后操作表现的重要组成部分。结果表明，与控制条件相比，睡眠剥夺后对接准确度显着下降，但仅限于困难任务级别。PVT 表现在睡眠不足的情况下恶化。睡眠剥夺后PVT反应速度受损较大的参与者在对接准确性方面也表现出较大的受损。总之，睡眠不足会导致6df表现受损，部分原因是持续注意力受损。由于任务的新颖性和吸引力而提高的动机水平可能有助于参与者在较容易的任务级别上补偿困倦的影响。持续测试手动对接技能可能是一个有用的工具，既可以检测与睡眠不足相关的障碍，也可以评估宇航员在长期任务期间的执勤准备情况。