Quantitative Modeling of Water Demand to Support a Continuous Human Presence on Mars
Establishing a continuous human presence on Mars is a crucial milestone in advancing human capabilities in space and is a high priority for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. An important step toward establishing a continuous human presence on Mars is identifying landing sites suitab...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2024
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/155633 |
| _version_ | 1811094239410388992 |
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| author | Charoenboonvivat, Yana |
| author2 | de Weck, Olivier L. |
| author_facet | de Weck, Olivier L. Charoenboonvivat, Yana |
| author_sort | Charoenboonvivat, Yana |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Establishing a continuous human presence on Mars is a crucial milestone in advancing human capabilities in space and is a high priority for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. An important step toward establishing a continuous human presence on Mars is identifying landing sites suitable for human and scientific exploration. The quantity of water needed to sustain human life on Mars is a key driver in the selection of landing sites. However, minimal work beyond first-order water demand estimates has been completed to date. To address this gap, this thesis quantitatively estimates how much water is needed to sustain a continuous human presence on Mars. Updates were made to a tool called HabNet, a MATLABsimulation tool that incorporates key mission parameters and outputs predictions of resource levels over time, to improve the accuracy and fidelity of water demand estimates. These updates involve creating additional Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) technologies and updating the crew model to reflect more recent data. The updated HabNet tool was then used to simulate five discrete cases that collectively represent a Mars surface campaign crew profile that shows increasing and continuous human presence. Results from deterministic modeling of water demand showed that the net total water demand for 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 crew members on a 790-day mission were 38,669 kg, 76,545 kg, 118,069 kg, 151,617 kg, and 193,134 kg, respectively. For each crew size, 63-65 % of water was needed for generating MAV propellant, 22-23 % of the water was needed for crops, and 12-15 % was needed for life support. Additionally, the water demand per crew member per day was found to fluctuate between 12.00 kg to 12.50 kg across the five cases. This thesis also demonstrated the ability to perform probabilistic modeling of water demand with HabNet using high-performance computing (HPC). A Monte Carlo simulation was completed using the MIT SuperCloud supercomputer for the same five discrete cases, which marked the first time HPC was used to produce HabNet simulation results. Gaussian and beta distributions were fitted to the water demand results from the Monte Carlo simulation. However, further work is still needed to determine which probability distribution best represents the data. Opportunities for future work include improving the accuracy and fidelity of HabNet to make resource demand estimates and leveraging HPC for future analyses that may be computationally intensive. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:56:45Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | mit-1721.1/155633 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:56:45Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1556332024-07-11T03:05:31Z Quantitative Modeling of Water Demand to Support a Continuous Human Presence on Mars Charoenboonvivat, Yana de Weck, Olivier L. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics Establishing a continuous human presence on Mars is a crucial milestone in advancing human capabilities in space and is a high priority for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. An important step toward establishing a continuous human presence on Mars is identifying landing sites suitable for human and scientific exploration. The quantity of water needed to sustain human life on Mars is a key driver in the selection of landing sites. However, minimal work beyond first-order water demand estimates has been completed to date. To address this gap, this thesis quantitatively estimates how much water is needed to sustain a continuous human presence on Mars. Updates were made to a tool called HabNet, a MATLABsimulation tool that incorporates key mission parameters and outputs predictions of resource levels over time, to improve the accuracy and fidelity of water demand estimates. These updates involve creating additional Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) technologies and updating the crew model to reflect more recent data. The updated HabNet tool was then used to simulate five discrete cases that collectively represent a Mars surface campaign crew profile that shows increasing and continuous human presence. Results from deterministic modeling of water demand showed that the net total water demand for 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 crew members on a 790-day mission were 38,669 kg, 76,545 kg, 118,069 kg, 151,617 kg, and 193,134 kg, respectively. For each crew size, 63-65 % of water was needed for generating MAV propellant, 22-23 % of the water was needed for crops, and 12-15 % was needed for life support. Additionally, the water demand per crew member per day was found to fluctuate between 12.00 kg to 12.50 kg across the five cases. This thesis also demonstrated the ability to perform probabilistic modeling of water demand with HabNet using high-performance computing (HPC). A Monte Carlo simulation was completed using the MIT SuperCloud supercomputer for the same five discrete cases, which marked the first time HPC was used to produce HabNet simulation results. Gaussian and beta distributions were fitted to the water demand results from the Monte Carlo simulation. However, further work is still needed to determine which probability distribution best represents the data. Opportunities for future work include improving the accuracy and fidelity of HabNet to make resource demand estimates and leveraging HPC for future analyses that may be computationally intensive. S.M. 2024-07-10T20:20:46Z 2024-07-10T20:20:46Z 2024-05 2024-05-28T19:37:44.878Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/155633 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright retained by author(s) https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| spellingShingle | Charoenboonvivat, Yana Quantitative Modeling of Water Demand to Support a Continuous Human Presence on Mars |
| title | Quantitative Modeling of Water Demand to Support a Continuous Human Presence on Mars |
| title_full | Quantitative Modeling of Water Demand to Support a Continuous Human Presence on Mars |
| title_fullStr | Quantitative Modeling of Water Demand to Support a Continuous Human Presence on Mars |
| title_full_unstemmed | Quantitative Modeling of Water Demand to Support a Continuous Human Presence on Mars |
| title_short | Quantitative Modeling of Water Demand to Support a Continuous Human Presence on Mars |
| title_sort | quantitative modeling of water demand to support a continuous human presence on mars |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/155633 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT charoenboonvivatyana quantitativemodelingofwaterdemandtosupportacontinuoushumanpresenceonmars |