NASA’s Artemis campaign seeks to return humans to the moon and establish a sustained presence on the lunar surface.  This session will emphasize how habitation capabilities can potentially contribute to the sustainability objectives of Artemis.  Habitable elements represent opportunities to enable longer duration stays, increase the number of crew members present, enhance science and utilization activities, drive technology development for future Mars exploration, perform analog missions, and fuel economic opportunities for US industry.  

The panel will provide an overview of the history of habitation concepts, considerations in space habitat design, and key engineering challenges identified for developing, deploying, and operating habitable assets on the lunar surface and/or in deep space.  These may include dust mitigation, outfitting of inflatable softgoods (for concepts which may use softgoods as a primary structural material), survival in lunar darkness, human health and performance considerations, maintenance/sparing/repair, and autonomy.  The habitat classification framework previously developed by NASA architects Kennedy/Cohen and constructed habitats, which may be built on a planetary surface using indigenous resources, will also be covered. NASA is currently developing notional concepts for a lunar surface habitat and Mars transit habitat, which will be discussed during this session and used as examples.  Other topics include the influence of the crew experience on habitation systems design and livability/usability considerations, the benefits of space habitation development in terrestrial applications, challenges and opportunities in “feeding forward” lunar surface habitation systems development to Mars exploration, and NASA partnership opportunities.