Technical Paper
Systems Engineering Evaluation of a Mars Habitat Design
2004-07-19
2004-01-2372
The overall system architecture of a habitat intended for human occupancy on the surface of Mars was analyzed as part of a graduate aerospace engineering design class at the University of Colorado during the 2003 fall semester. The process was initiated by summarizing and deriving the governing requirements and constraints based on NASA’s “Reference Mission for the Human Exploration of Mars” (Hoffman and Kaplan, 1997; Drake, 1998). With emphasis placed on requirement identification and documentation, a baseline design was established that incorporated functional subsystem definition and analysis of integration factors such as structural layout, mass flows, power distribution, data transmission, etc. In addition, a ‘human-in-the-loop’ focus was stressed by designating a subsystem termed Crew Accommodations.
