Defining and characterizing self-awareness and self-sufficiency for deep space habitats

Abstract

Future deep-space crewed exploration plans include long duration missions (>1000 days) that will be constrained by lengthy transmission delays and potential occultations in communications, as well as infrequent resupply opportunities and likely periods of habitat unoccupancy. In order to meet the high level of autonomy needed for these missions, many essential capabilities and knowledge previously accomplished through ground support and human operators must now be designed into onboard systems to enable increasing self-reliance. Emergent technologies, including autonomous systems, have the potential to be mission enabling in deep space; however, as these technologies are often low-TRL and without defined mass, power, or volume, their net impact to the design must be assessed through alternative means, especially during the early planning phases. This paper proposes the concept of designing for self-reliant space habitats as the foundation for assessing potential contributions from the integration of emergent technologies. The term ‘self-reliance’ can be thought of as a combination of the spacecraft system and onboard crew's knowledge (self-awareness) and capabilities (self-sufficiency) independent of external intervention. In order to provide context for human spaceflight, these terms are first derived from related terrestrial applications. Subsequently, a methodology for characterizing the degree of self-awareness and self-sufficiency in a space habitat is outlined to provide designers with logic for assessing the contributions of emergent technologies to the overall self-reliance of the habitat as needed to allow future Earth-independence. The definitions and characterization logic provided in this work offer a systematic process for designing toward self-reliance in future deep space missions.