Browsing by Author "Katz, Neil"
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Item Moon Village Reference Masterplan and Habitat Design(49th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2019-07-07) Petrov, Georgi; Inocente, Daniel; Haney, Max; Katz, Neil; Koop, Colin; Makaya, Advenit; Arnhof, Marlies; Lakk, Hanna; Cowley, Aidan; Haignere, Claudie; Messina, Piero; Sumini, Valentina; Hoffman, JeffreyThe concept of an international “Moon Village” introduced by the Director General of ESA, Jan Wörner, has been a catalyst for renewed interest in developing a permanent settlement on the Moon. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is investigating together with the European Space Agency and faculty from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concepts for the first permanent human settlement on the lunar surface. The European Space Agency is contributing expertise from their research and procurement facilities including ESTEC, the European Astronaut Centre and ESA HQ. This collaboration is strengthened by key input by faculty from the Aerospace Engineering Department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including a NASA Astronaut with human spaceflight experience. This collaboration aims to demonstrate the potential of an international private-public partnership to advance human space exploration through cross-disciplinary cooperation. The paper presents a holistic approach to planning of a lunar development, centering on the need for habitation systems, designed as adaptive space systems to enable an ecosystem of versatile surface operations. The designed multi-functional structural concepts are optimized for performance, safety, and utility, leverage emerging technologies including a combination of structural pressurized vessels, regolith structures for radiation shielding, and adaptive infrastructure planning. Located on the south pole near the “peaks of eternal light, the development maximizes In-Situ Resource Utilization (ice deposits and energy). Phasing strategies are explored for evaluating the evolutionary steps of the settlement to harness future ISRU-based construction activities.Item Solar Array Configurations for the Moon Village(2020 International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2020-07-31) Halbach, Eric; Inocente, Daniel; Haney, Max; Katz, Neil; Petrov, Georgi I.The Moon Village master plan is an architectural concept for a sustainable, international human outpost on the rim of Shackleton Crater near the lunar South Pole. This site receives nearly continuous sunlight throughout the lunar year, providing a clear benefit for human psychological needs and technically, as it can greatly contribute to solar power generation. In general, a solar panel would need to be oriented vertically, facing the horizon, while rotating 360° to track the Sun, which varies in elevation angle by only some +/-1.5° at the proposed location. To support a growing settlement, an array of several panels could be installed within a ground area. This faces the problem, however, that panels currently exposed to the Sun may occlude those behind, lowering the total exposure and making some configurations ineffective if many panels remain highly occluded. This problem was studied by comparing the simulated exposure of various array configurations during a lunar daily cycle. First ground spacing was considered for arrays of 2 to 5 panels. Mean total exposure was found to increase by up to 66% if the array's circular ground area diameter was increased to three times the minimum, while the actual array configuration had a small effect. For predefined square ground areas, several versions of six array types were tested. For smaller numbers of wider panels, several configurations offered similar mean exposures. Filling the available area with more, narrower panels could result in a gradual increase in mean exposure, or a decrease due to more gaps between panels. The Arrow array achieved ~96% of the available mean exposure using the least total panel area, while the X-array provided similar mean and full minimum exposure using the least panel area. Hexagonal configurations provided ~98% of the available mean, and the full minimum, using more panel area.Item Solar Arrays with Variable Panel Elevations for the Moon Village(50th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 7/12/2021) Halbach, Eric; Inocente, Daniel; Katz, Neil; Petrov, Georgi I.The Moon Village master plan by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and the European Space Agency is a concept for a permanent human settlement near the lunar South Pole, on the rim of Shackleton Crater. The project location has been determined to receive nearly continuous sunlight throughout the lunar year, offering the potential for nearly continuous solar power generation. One challenge, however, is that the Sun remains near the horizon during the lunar daily cycle. For an array of several solar panels deployed in a ground area, panels currently facing the Sun would cast long shadows, possibly occluding other panels behind. A previous study by the authors identified favorable spatial configurations of vertically-oriented solar panels which increased the average exposed total panel area while minimizing the number of panels or total panel area. One simplifying assumption was the use of panels at the same elevation in each array. Using panels with different elevations, however, offers the possibility of increasing solar panel exposure for a given ground deployment area. The previous study is therefore extended in this paper by studying arrays with panels that can have different fixed or actuated elevations, in order to find favorable configurations to increase average solar exposure during a simulated lunar day. Two automatic panel control strategies are proposed for circular array configurations: Automatic Elevation Control makes is possible to achieve maximum panel exposure using two elevation levels, while Automatic Angle Adjustment (AAA) addresses the problem of partial panel shading by rotating some panels away from the solar incidence angle in order to avoid shadowing from other panels. In one example, AAA provides up to a 45% increase in the exposed area of unshaded panels compared with each panel facing the Sun at a perpendicular angle.