Mars Settlement Engineering Design Challenge

Overview

This capstone project challenges students to design a functional Mars settlement for a crew of 12 during a 500-day surface stay. Working in engineering teams, students must solve interconnected problems spanning structural engineering, atmospheric chemistry, power generation, food production, water management, radiation protection, and human factors. This project mirrors the format of The Mars Society’s Mission to Mars Engineering Design Competition.

Background for Teachers

The Mars Direct Mission Architecture

Dr. Robert Zubrin’s Mars Direct plan, published in The Case for Mars (1996), provides the foundational architecture that most Mars settlement concepts build upon:

1. An Earth Return Vehicle (ERV) is sent to Mars unmanned, landing with a chemical processing plant and a nuclear reactor
2. Over 500 days, the ERV produces methane/oxygen propellant from the Martian atmosphere using the Sabatier reaction
3. Once propellant production is confirmed, the crew launches in a habitat module
4. The crew lives in the habitat on the Martian surface for 500 days while conducting exploration
5. The crew returns to Earth in the pre-fueled ERV

Design Constraints for This Project

Students must design a settlement that meets these constraints:

Crew: 12 people (mixed specialties: geologists, engineers, biologists, medical, operations) Duration: 500-day surface stay (one Mars opposition-class mission) Mass budget: 40 metric tons of cargo delivered to Mars surface (across multiple landing vehicles) Power budget: Must justify power source selection and demonstrate sufficiency Location: Students choose a landing site and justify the selection

Human Requirements Reference Data

Lesson Procedure

Day 1: Project Introduction and Team Formation (45 minutes)

Introduction (15 minutes)

Present the design challenge:

“Your engineering firm has been contracted by The Mars Society to design a surface settlement for the first long-duration human mission to Mars. Twelve crew members will live and work on Mars for 500 days. Your design must keep them alive, productive, and healthy — and bring them all home safely.”

Review the design constraints, mass budget, and human requirements data.

Team Formation and Role Assignment (15 minutes)

Form teams of 4-6 students. Each team assigns roles:

• Chief Engineer: Overall design integration, mass budget management
• Life Support Engineer: Atmosphere, water recycling, waste management
• Power Systems Engineer: Energy generation, storage, and distribution
• Structural Engineer: Habitat design, radiation shielding, pressure vessels
• Agricultural Engineer: Food production, greenhouse design
• Mission Planner: Landing site selection, EVA operations, communications

(Smaller teams may combine roles)

Landing Site Research (15 minutes)

Teams begin researching potential landing sites. Provide criteria:

• Access to water ice (confirmed by orbital data)
• Relatively flat terrain for landing safety
• Scientifically interesting location
• Latitude constraints (solar power availability, temperature extremes)

Strong candidates include:

• Arcadia Planitia (abundant near-surface ice, flat terrain)
• Jezero Crater region (scientific interest, confirmed water history)
• Hellas Basin (lowest elevation = highest atmospheric pressure)
• Utopia Planitia (Viking 2 landing site region, confirmed ice)

Day 2: Habitat and Life Support Design (45 minutes)

Structural Engineering (20 minutes)

Students design the habitat structure addressing:

1. Pressurization: Interior must maintain ~70 kPa (sea-level Earth is 101 kPa). Calculate the outward force on habitat walls for their chosen dimensions.

2. Radiation shielding options:

   • Regolith piling (Mars soil, approximately 2.5 m needed for adequate shielding)
   • Water walls (dual-purpose: shielding + water storage)
   • Underground/lava tube habitats (natural shielding)
   • Calculate the mass of each option for a given surface area

3. Thermal control: Mars surface temperatures range from -120 to +20 degrees Celsius. Design insulation and heating systems.

Life Support Systems (25 minutes)

Students design closed-loop life support addressing:

1. Atmosphere management:

   • O2 production: MOXIE-scale systems + plant-based supplementation
   • CO2 removal: chemical scrubbers or bioregenerative systems
   • N2/buffer gas: brought from Earth or extracted from Mars atmosphere (2.7%)
   • Calculate daily O2 consumption and CO2 production for 12 crew

2. Water recycling:

   • On the International Space Station, water recovery exceeds 90%
   • Calculate daily water needs with and without recycling
   • Design a water recycling system (condensation recovery, urine processing, wastewater treatment)

3. Waste management:

   • Solid waste processing (composting for agriculture, or incineration for volume reduction)
   • Wastewater treatment integration with water recycling

Day 3: Power Systems and Food Production (45 minutes)

Power System Design (20 minutes)

Students select and size a power system:

Option A: Solar Power

• Mars solar constant: approximately 590 W/m^2 (vs. Earth’s 1361 W/m^2)
• Panel efficiency: approximately 30%
• Effective power: approximately 177 W/m^2 peak
• Must account for: day/night cycle, seasonal variation, dust storm reduction (up to 99% reduction for weeks)
• Battery storage requirements for nighttime and dust storms
• Calculate total panel area needed for settlement power requirements

Option B: Nuclear (Kilopower/similar)

• 10 kW per reactor unit, approximately 400 kg each
• Reliable power regardless of weather or time of day
• Limited by mass budget (each reactor uses part of the 40-ton allocation)
• Maintenance and safety considerations

Option C: Hybrid

• Nuclear for base load, solar for supplemental power
• Most realistic approach — calculate the optimal mix

Students calculate total power demand by summing requirements from all systems (life support, ISRU, lighting, heating, communications, science equipment, cooking, etc.).

Food Production (25 minutes)

Students design a bioregenerative food system:

1. Caloric requirements: 12 crew x 2500 kcal/day = 30,000 kcal/day

2. Crop selection: Which crops offer the best calories per square meter per day?

   • Potatoes: approximately 70 kcal/m^2/day
   • Soybeans: approximately 22 kcal/m^2/day
   • Wheat: approximately 17 kcal/m^2/day
   • Lettuce: approximately 5 kcal/m^2/day (but important for vitamins and morale)

3. Greenhouse design:

   • Calculate growing area needed for a target percentage of food self-sufficiency
   • Lighting requirements (natural sunlight through transparent panels vs. LED grow lights)
   • Mars soil (regolith) processing: removing perchlorates, adding nutrients
   • Hydroponics vs. soil-based growing

4. Supplemental food: Calculate how much pre-packaged food must be brought from Earth to supplement greenhouse production

Day 4: Integration and Mass Budget (45 minutes)

System Integration (25 minutes)

Teams assemble their complete design, checking for:

1. Mass budget compliance: Total landed mass must not exceed 40 metric tons

   • Habitat structure: __ tonnes
   • Life support equipment: __ tonnes
   • Power systems: __ tonnes
   • Food (pre-packaged): __ tonnes
   • Greenhouse systems: __ tonnes
   • ISRU equipment: __ tonnes
   • Science equipment: __ tonnes
   • Rovers and EVA suits: __ tonnes
   • Spares and contingency: __ tonnes (recommend 15-20%)
   • Total: must be less than or equal to 40 tonnes

2. Power budget balance: Total power generation must meet or exceed total demand

3. Mass flow balance: Inputs (CO2, H2O ice, solar energy) and outputs (O2, waste heat, waste products) must balance

4. Redundancy: Critical systems (life support, power) must have backup capability

Trade-off Documentation (20 minutes)

For each major design decision, students document:

• What alternatives were considered
• What criteria drove the selection
• What is sacrificed by this choice
• What risk does this choice introduce

Day 5: Presentations and Peer Review (45 minutes)

Team Presentations (30 minutes)

Each team presents their design (5-7 minutes):

1. Settlement name and mission statement
2. Landing site selection with justification
3. Habitat tour (walkthrough of the settlement layout)
4. Key engineering innovations
5. Mass and power budget summaries
6. One trade-off that was particularly difficult

Peer Review (10 minutes)

Teams evaluate each other’s designs using a rubric:

• Feasibility (4 pts): Could this settlement actually work with current or near-term technology?
• Completeness (4 pts): Are all critical systems addressed?
• Innovation (4 pts): Are there creative solutions to difficult problems?
• Quantitative Rigor (4 pts): Are calculations correct and assumptions reasonable?
• Presentation Quality (4 pts): Clear communication of complex technical content

Reflection (5 minutes)

Individual written reflection:

1. “What was the hardest engineering trade-off your team faced?”
2. “What would you change if you had a 60-tonne mass budget instead of 40?”
3. “After this project, do you think human settlement of Mars is achievable? Why or why not?”

Assessment

• Engineering design notebook: Daily entries showing iterative design process, calculations, and decision rationale
• Mass and power budgets: Complete, balanced, and within constraints
• Final presentation: Evaluated by peer review rubric (20 points total)
• Individual reflection: Demonstrates understanding of engineering trade-offs and personal engagement with the challenge

NGSS Alignment

• HS-ETS1-1: Analyze a major global challenge to specify qualitative and quantitative criteria and constraints for solutions
• HS-ETS1-2: Design a solution to a complex real-world problem by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable problems
• HS-ETS1-3: Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs
• HS-PS3-1: Create a computational model to calculate the change in the energy of one component in a system
• HS-ESS2-4: Use a model to describe how variations in the flow of energy into and out of Earth’s systems result in changes in climate

Connection to Mars Society Competition

This project directly prepares students for The Mars Society’s annual Mission to Mars Engineering Design Competition, where teams of students aged 13-19 work with NASA scientists and aerospace engineers to design complete Mars surface missions. The competition runs each summer and culminates in formal design report submissions and presentation rounds before expert judges.

Visit the Competition page to learn more and register.

Extensions

• Extend the design to a permanent settlement (100+ people, multi-decade timeline)
• Add an economic analysis: what resources could a Mars settlement export or what services could it provide?
• Research and incorporate actual Mars weather data into the power system analysis
• Design the Earth Return Vehicle and calculate propellant requirements using the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation
• Investigate the psychological and social challenges of long-duration isolation and propose mitigation strategies
• Compare your design with published Mars settlement concepts from NASA (DRA 5.0), SpaceX, and The Mars Society