Study of In-Situ Resources utilization in the Mars surface

Abstract

The future plans of space agencies and private companies are focused on Mars. This is one of the most challenging engineering projects of the 21st century. Due to the long distance to Earth, the cost is unaffordable. One way to reduce the mission cost is to use as many in-situ resources as possible in order to reduce the supply carried from the Earth. Therefore, the focus of the present work is to evaluate and simulate in a preliminary design a human manned mission to Mars. These simulations include the use of In-Situ Resources Utilization (ISRU) technology and the Environment Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) of the Mars habitat, as well as the human requirement of the crew. After analysing five different scenarios for different number of missions, the most convenient option with the technology available nowadays is identified for a future human mission to Mars