Design and Analysis of a Deployable Greenhouse Structure for Martian Environment

Kurzfassung

The current global exploration roadmap nudges us to expand further away from the inner solar system onto our neighbouring planet - Mars. With the solar system’s highest volcanos, deep crevasses, basins and a dynamically changing atmosphere on the poles every season, it creates a ideal candidate for long duration exploration. To support human exploration missions on another celestial body, greenhouses shall become a necessity in order to reduce the total mass that would be allocated for supplies. Institute of Space Systems, DLR at Bremen is currently conducting a long term project, EDEN ISS to carry out ground demonstration of plant cultivation technologies for safe food production in space and other destinations. The master thesis is carried out in cooperation with EDEN ISS team in order translate their methods of food production for Martian missions. A detailed literature review is carried out on deployable space structures, past analogue habitats, past studies and the Martian environment. The review delivers a baseline for high level requirements and assumptions for conceptualization of a large scale pressurized deployable greenhouse facility. Six different concepts are developed and evaluated using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) method on based on five criteria weighting - mass, plant growth area, stowed vs. deployed volume, reliability and crew support. The selected concept is a fully pressurized hub service section connecting eight greenhouse modules that erect using telescopic deployment. The greenhouse system is envisioned to be enclosed underneath a protection shield built using In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) capability and connected with the habitat to utilize resources. A preliminary analysis is performed for estimating structural, radiation, wind and thermal loads experienced on the protection shield as well as the greenhouse system. To validate the preliminary analysis, a PATRAN detailed model of the greenhouse system was created and validated using NASTRAN. The analysis show that the rigid and inflatable components of the structure shall sustain the stress that is experienced by the system. Finally, a brief overview of the future work is presented.