Space & Earth Reliable greENhouse desIgn meThodologY

With a return of human exploration missions to the Moon in the mid-2020s and the preparation of more distant and longer-duration missions to Mars and further into the solar system, large-scale sustainable and reliable food production systems will need to be developed. Until now, only small-scale plant growth systems have been operated in space and they still pose numerous challenges.

To be sustainable, greenhouse modules (GHM) for space need to use few resources, present low risk, be robust, reliable, and resilient.

Therefore, this project aims at developing a methodology allowing space and terrestrial GHM design based on given constraints, using modelling, simulations, and optimization, with a process engineering and system engineering approach. The first objective is the analysis of constraints and objectives.

This will be achieved after review and definition of environmental parameters constraints, criteria pertaining to GHM stability and reliability, and subsystem modelling, through extended literature review.

The second objective is the systematic generation of competing designs using simulation tools based on constraints defined in objective 1.

The interpretation of these results is the second part of this objective and is achieved with comparing different GHM designs, using criteria linked to used resources (energy, water, crew time), resources production (food, oxygen, water), as well as reliability, sustainability and risk.

The third objective is the decision on a systematic approach to choose the best solution and provide recommendations for plant growth systems design in different gravity scenario.

This project will fill the gap for the development of space and terrestrial food production systems and thus allow human exploration of Mars. It will allow Dr.

Poulet to acquire the skills she needs to move her career forward and it will enable UCA Institut Pascal - GePEB to strengthen their international collaboration network with the space community.