Challenges in the Decommissioning of a Smart Deep Space Habitat

Living in a smart habitat on the Moon is a steppingstone for developing the required technology for humans to live on Mars in the near future, and there have been several research projects investigating the corresponding challenges. Resilient Extra-Terrestrial Habitats institute (RETHi) at Purdue University developed a Modular Coupled Virtual Testbed (MCVT) for simulating a Reference Habitat Concept (RHC) at its vulnerable moments, where an event (disruption scenario) places the whole habitat and the crew in a critical situation (hazardous state). MCVT enables us to model how different decision-making can determine the recovery or failure of the habitat in hazardous state. Commissioning and decommissioning are concerns that must be considered for the development of every deep space habitat. Despite the absence of humans, dormant operations are still extremely important and need to meet certain standards for the safety of the equipment. For instance, the pressure and temperature can be decreased, enough to ensure the safety of the electronics and other delicate components, and consequently, less power generation is required. MCVT is designed to simulate the transition of a space habitat, where the user can determine the priority and duration of different transition phases. The goal of this paper is to use MCVT as a tool and measure resilience to investigate the consequences and the required decision-making when a disruption scenario occurs in the middle of a crewed to dormant transition. The recovery of a habitat during the transition can have its own challenges. For instance, the system may not be generating enough power to implement the usual safety controls, this is while some of the requirements may not be as critical as they are over the crewed or dormant states, like the minimum temperature and pressure.