Structural Design of Frame-Membrane Habitat Concepts Considering Life Support Requirements for Lunar Colonization

‡When designing a habitat for a long term lunar colonization mission, there are many considerations which need to be made beginning with the different environmental concerns, the required life support systems needed to sustain life in a shirt-sleeve environment, and the numerous construction and feasibility problems. The distant location of the habitat site also necessitates the need for a low mass and low volume structure. One way to reduce the mass and volume of the structural elements within this habitat is to incorporate the life support systems at an early stage of the design. Within this paper two habitat concepts are presented on the basis that a preliminary study of the required life support systems has been completed and their mass placed within the habitat. Lunar regolith is used as a shielding material to further reduce the transportation mass and use the principle of in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). One of the habitats has undergone a structural analysis using the finite element technique in order to determine the required member size and mass of each element. This early combination of the life support and structural systems helps to create an ideal lunar habitat with a low mass and transport volume.