Notional Habitat Science Outfitting for a Lunar Surface Habitat or Mars Transit Habitat

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Notional Habitat Science Outfitting for a Lunar Surface Habitat or Mars Transit Habitat

Robert L Howard

Science outfitting is often given insufficient treatment in the development of early conceptual studies for lunar surface habitats. In some cases, only control masses and volumes are used as placeholders. In others, one science discipline may be given detailed treatment while others are largely ignored. It is not unheard of for science outfitting to be entirely forgotten in initial concept layouts. This is exacerbated by the reality that spacecraft design studies are often initiated long before science objectives have been established for any given human spaceflight destination. When those objectives later emerge, they can be difficult to accommodate if sizing studies did not allocate sufficient resources for them. A notional science outfitting can be created for virtually any human exploration habitat, however, utilizing data created by the International Space Station and Constellation programs. Biology, human research, physics, and geology science laboratories and a general-purpose work area for a lunar surface habitat will be derived using equipment identified by the Constellation-era Optimizing Science and Exploration Working Group (OSEWG) or flown on the International Space Station. Early science outfitting definition and inclusion in surface habitat sizing is critical for developing an exploration architecture that meets science needs. The mass, volume, power, and use cases associated with these notional laboratories impacts all of the habitat subsystems, habitat dimensions, hatch dimensions, logistics operations, launch vehicles and landers.