Building on Mars

Abstract

Humans are going to Mars and the plan is to achieve this within the next couple of decades. In mission architectures the habitat is considered a sub-system in the overall mission’s system architecture. In current mission engineering, the crew’s psychology is barely considered in the design of the mission. In aerospace engineering, one refers to Human Factors Engineering or Human Systems Integration. NASA did acknowledge the need of designing for habitability. (Connors et al., 1985). However, a method to address or assess this has not been found. It is thought that designing for habitability in the architectural design of the habitat is likely to decrease stresses on the crew and will therefore improve the crew’s performance.

The architect has to synthesise quantitative constraints, concerning the constructibility of the habitat as a sub-system, and qualitative requirements, related to the habitability of the architectural program organization, into one integrated design. For a mission to Mars, it was found that the mission architecture forms the baseline for the design parameters that the architect has to consider. The mission architecture, or concept of operations, will result in several baseline assumptions. Based on these assumptions the criteria for constructibility of the surface habitat can be quantified. In addition, the characteristics of the crew and their psychological and physical needs can be defined. These requirements will then form the driving parameters for the space architect’s design of the surface habitat.

During habitat development a continuous design iteration will be necessary between the architect and mission engineers as well as space psychology experts. The architect will develop the habitat’s configuration of system elements and organization of functional activities. In turn, the other experts will evaluate the proposal based on the constructability and habitability of the habitat system, therefore qualifying the design in terms of its feasibility.

Some preliminary criteria for the design evaluation of the surface habitat have been defined. The criteria related to constructability enhold, but are not limited to, fitting the budgets of mass, power, volume and the schedule as well as having the chosen sub-systems to meet the required Technology Readiness Levels and the building construction to meet the requirements for technical performance based on characteristics of the chosen location. The criteria related to habitability enhold, but are not limited to, meeting the physiological needs and safety measures for psychological well-being, facilitating privacy, engagement opportunities and autonomy, as well as a creating a positive perception of the enclosed space.

Finally, a design exercise was conducted to test application of the framework. The result of the preliminary design revealed insight in the complexity of the design task at hand and the need for a continuous interdisciplinary design iteration between experts from both mission engineering and space psychology. These iterations will be of vital importance in order to come to a final habitat design which will be feasible in terms of constructibility and habitability. The defined framework will form a starting point for shaping this design process, thus resulting in an evolvable design strategy.