Combining Multi Criteria and ESM Analysis in the Life Support Trade Off Tool (LiSTOT) to Analyze the Interplanetary Transport Ship Concept of SpaceX

With Virtual Habitat, the Institute for Astronautics of the Technical University of Munich has a powerful tool to simulate different life support system (LSS) architectures. However, previously the capability to perform detailed trade off analysis was missing from the capabilities. This gap was now closed with the development of the Life Support Trade Off Tool (LiSTOT) that combine multi criteria and Equivalent System Mass (ESM) analysis into one tool to select the optimal combination of LSS for specific missions. This new tool was used to analyze the Interplanetary Transport Ship concept of SpaceX for a crew of up to 100 persons, which is an order of magnitude larger than other planned missions to mars with regard to the crew size. Based on an extensive database of LSS technologies and a catalogue of requirements for space missions, an optimized architecture for all necessary LSS functions was selected. The selected systems were then further analyzed with transient simulations to prove the dynamic stability of the selected systems.