NASA's advanced exploration systems Mars transit habitat refinement point of departure design

Abstract

This paper describes the recently developed point of departure design for a long duration, reusable Mars Transit Habitat, which was established during a 2016 NASA habitat design refinement activity supporting the definition of NASA's Evolvable Mars Campaign. As part of its development of sustainable human Mars mission concepts achievable in the 2030s, the Evolvable Mars Campaign has identified desired durations and mass/dimensional limits for long duration Mars habitat designs to enable the currently assumed solar electric and chemical transportation architectures. The Advanced Exploration Systems Mars Transit Habitat Refinement Activity brought together habitat subsystem design expertise from across NASA to develop an increased fidelity, consensus design for a transit habitat within these constraints. The resulting design and data (including a mass equipment list) contained in this paper are intended to help teams across the agency and potential commercial, academic, or international partners understand: 1) the current architecture/habitat guidelines and assumptions, 2) performance targets of such a habitat (particularly in mass, volume, and power), 3) the driving technology/capability developments and architectural solutions which are necessary for achieving these targets, and 4) mass reduction opportunities and research/design needs to inform the development of future research and proposals. Data presented includes: an overview of the habitat refinement activity including motivation and process when informative; full documentation of the baseline design guidelines and assumptions; detailed mass and volume breakdowns; a moderately detailed concept of operations; a preliminary interior layout design with rationale; a list of the required capabilities necessary to enable the desired mass; and identification of any worthwhile trades/analyses which could inform future habitat design efforts. As a whole, the data in the paper show that a transit habitat meeting the 43 metric tons launch mass/trans-Mars injection burn limits specified by the Evolvable Mars Campaign is achievable near the desired timeframe with moderate strategic investments including maintainable life support systems, repurposable structures and packaging, and lightweight exercise modalities. It also identifies operational and technological options to reduce this mass to less than 41 metric tons including staging of launch structure/packaging and alternate structural materials.

Genomic Instability and Carcinogenesis of Heavy Charged Particles Radiation: Clinical and Environmental Implications

“…The major challenge in space radiobiology is the prolonged exposure to high energy heavy particles which may affect astronaut’s health and safety. This is a challenging topic in radiobiology; hence, several projects have been funded to investigate the biological effects of exposure to high energy particles during deep space or Mars exploration [11].…”

Gateway Lunar Habitat Modules as the Basis for a Modular Mars Transit Habitat

“…[2] For the Mars Transit Habitat shown in Fig. 6, one LIFE module is used along with an attached logistics module to bring the total pressurized volume up to 324m 3 . The forward end has docking ports, an airlock, and propulsion similar to the Bigelow Aerospace configuration resulting in a mass of about 61mT.…”

“…The Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin configurations for Gateway shown in Figures 7 and 8 respectively, use proven hardware based on module designs from the International Space Station (ISS). [2] The configurations include habitat modules, nodes, and airlocks with pressurized volumes up to about 75m 3…”

“…Habitat design based on their designs, Fig. 9, uses five modules to bring the total pressurized volume up to about 384m 3 with a resulting mass of about 76.7mT. The mass growth for this configuration is significant and is caused by the increase in the number of modules and the resulting structural mass from duplicate systems.…”

Improving Logistics and Waste Management for Deep Space Human Exploration

“…Below, these net mission benefits are calculated, and for the first time required spare parts were estimated and included for two of the waste processing technologies. The ESM conversion factors used in the analysis were derived from reference [16] and are listed in Table 1.…”