Additive Manufacturing Special Report - November 2023 - 8

3D-Printed
Mars Habitat
Simulated on Earth
Insights from a simulated habitat at NASA's Johnson Space Center will
help the agency make informed decisions to
design and plan for a successful human mission to Mars.
I
n April this year, NASA selected four participants from the
general public to embark on the agency's first one-year
analog mission in the 3D-printed habitat. These include Kelly
Haston, Commander; Ross Brockwell, Flight Engineer; Nathan
Jones, Medical Officer; and Alyssa Shannon, Science Officer.
This summer, the four volunteers will begin the year-long
Mars mission in the ground-based simulated habitat, built by
ICON, helping NASA prepare for human exploration of Mars.
The mission is the first of three planned in NASA's CHAPEA
habitat, or Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog,
located at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
CHAPEA is a series of analog missions that will simulate
year-long stays on the surface of Mars. Each mission will consist
of four crew members living in Mars Dune Alpha, an isolated
3D-printed 1,700 square foot habitat. The 3D-printed habitat
will include private crew quarters, a kitchen, and dedicated
areas for medical, recreation, fitness, work, and crop growth
activities, as well as a technical work area and two bathrooms.
During the first of three, one-year missions, the four-person
crew of individuals, selected from the general public, will carry
out different types of mission activities in CHAPEA. These
activities include simulated spacewalks or " Marswalks " outside
the habitat - some using virtual reality technology - and
robotics operations, along with other activities such as habitat
maintenance, personal hygiene, exercise, and crop growth.
" We're really looking at how the crew performance
and health changes based on realistic Mars restrictions
and lifestyle of the crew members, " said Raina MacLeod,
CHAPEA Deputy Project Manager at JSC. " So, the lifestyle
is what we're trying to simulate by setting up a realistic
environment and workload for the CHAPEA crew. "
Simulated Traverses
The simulated traverses will be conducted in pairs in the
" sandbox " portion of the habitat, which is filled with red sand
to simulate the Martian landscape. The sandbox contains
equipment such as a treadmill for the virtual reality walks to
allow crew to simulate longer traverses beyond the physical
confines of the 1,200-square-foot sandbox. Mars has about
a third of the gravity Earth does, which will present unique
challenges for eventual human missions on the Red Planet.
8 NOVEMBER 2023
The objective of each traverse will vary throughout
the mission. For example, during some of the
simulated spacewalks, the crew will focus on
field geology work by locating and identifying
rocks of interest, communicating unique
characteristics to the crew inside the habitat
to enter in a database, taking photographs
for documentation, and retrieving a sample
from the rock and bringing it into the
habitat for analysis. During others, the
crew will focus on evaluating sites for
simulated construction activities.
Some of the virtual reality traverses
will also include simulated science
and maintenance activities, such as
setting up experiment packages or
performing dust mitigation steps to
optimize solar panel functionality.
" We thought through a few different
types of spacewalks that we thought
would be realistic to what astronauts
would do on the surface of Mars, "
MacLeod said. " We would have them do
geology work, and then they probably
would do some building tasks, and then
also exploration. So, those are the three
categories we are looking at for CHAPEA
- geology, building, and exploration. "
In addition to the simulated traverses,
crew members will spend time remotely
operating robotic elements, which will
likely be necessary for real crews on
Mars to extend their exploration capabilities.
During the CHAPEA robotic operations, crew members will
be responsible for controlling a helicopter-like drone and a
roving robot. The crew will work in pairs inside the habitat to
operate the drone and robot to survey remote areas, identify and
retrieve rock samples, and document geological information.
" The robotics element is a very interesting activity that we are
including for our crew. It's always good to have really stimulating
tasks, especially on a long-duration analog study to keep the
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