Today the SIMOC and SAM teams received notice of acceptance of six research abstracts to the ICES 2022 conference!

“Integrating Mushrooms into an Agent-based Model of a Physico-chemical and Bioregenerative ECLSS” by Sean Gellenbeck, UA PhD Student and aerospace engineer at Paragon. This paper will bring Sean’s PhD research into the SIMOC agent-based model. Cool!

“Lessons learned from the construction of a hi-fidelity, hermetically sealed Mars analog and research station” by Kai Staats, Trent Tresch, John Adams. This is a re-submit as we did not have SAM far enough along to write a proper paper, in Feb/Mar of this year.

“Parameter Space Exploration of Entropic Systems in a Mars Habitat” by Grant Hawking and Ezio Melotti. Grant joined the SIMOC development team this summer and has demonstrated himself as capable and tireless. With our lead developer Ezio and a bit of guidance by myself, we will explore the effect of increased entropy against a steady-state baseline in our agent-based model. This brings us back to my very first design session in June 2017. We have arrived!

“Responses to Elevated CO2 on Food Production and Life Support Systems in a Mars Habitat” is another proposed research project by Grant that is a combination of developing an advanced model in SIMOC whereby the correlation of CO2 levels to plant production is both informed by and the validated against published research and data. This is a solid challenge, but if we can pull it off, it will be highly valuable.

“Integrating real-time data from a Mars habitat analog into an educational web interface” by the ASU undergraduate Capstone team Meridith, Gregory, Ian, Ryan, and David. This paper describes how real-life data can be provided to citizen-scientists, establishing a tangible interface between simulation and real-world systems. Congrats for taking on this incredible challenge and even greater reward!

“On the creation of a compact solution for monitoring air quality in a Mars habitat analog” also by the ASU undergraduate Capstone team, provides a clear methodology for citizen scientists and researchers alike to monitor atmospheric quality of any enclosed space … life support system integration, by which collected data can be used to calibrate indoor air conditions for any extraterrestrial habitat. The team gave a live demo of the first live feed just last week!