The virtual habitat

Manned exploration of our solar system depends on efficient, safe, and robust Life Support Systems. The state of the art Life Support System design process is based on the static concept of Equivalent System Mass. It allows selecting technologies with the lowest mass, volume, power, cooling, and maintenance requirements. In this thesis it is shown that dynamic analyses investigating the robustness of Life Support System architectures extend the Equivalent System Mass concept. To provide the necessary transient characteristics, the relevant Life Support System subsystems including the crew are characterized in a dynamic manner. Since an experimental characterization of dynamic Life Support System parameters is rarely possible, computer simulations are suggested as a possible solution. The developed Life Support System modeling environment, named the Virtual Habitat (V-HAB), includes all necessary modules to dynamically simulate Life Support System operations for complete mission scenarios. Among others, V-HAB is equipped with a dynamic and environmentally sensitive crew model. The ability of V-HAB to support Life Support System analyses with dynamic simulations of relevant missions is demonstrated in selected case studies. The first simulation depicts the International Space Station while two further simulate Mars mission scenarios.