Team:Stanford-Brown-RISD/MissionArchitecture

Designing the space mission is an extremely important, yet complicated part of a NASA proposal. The term "Mission Architecture" refers to the overall structure of the mission - beginning with on-Earth preparations, and concluding after setup of our habitats at the destination planet. In this section, we'll go over these considerations chronologically, and emphasize how the different subprojects (glues, filters, etc.) fit into the overall mission plan.

I. Habitat Design

Beginning on Earth, the first task involves manufacturing the plastic shell for our habitats. Our habitat is designed as a three-layered plastic dome. The outer layer is designed to hold H2O, which can provide some measure of temperature insulation (high specific heat) and radiation protection (due to the high hydrogen-composition, which interacts with harmful primary radiation, while producing less secondary radiation than compounds composed of heavier elements)1,2,3. The supply for the H2O layer will be drawn via melted subsurface ice water at the landing site.