Lunar Surface Habitats as a Development Opportunity for Mars Surface Life Support Systems

The development of Mars surface systems will require extensive development testing to make a first-time human mission to Mars successful and cost-effective. As our nearest surface destination, the Moon provides excellent surface systems analogs and learning opportunities to develop Mars mission equipment, systems, processes and procedures. Among other systems and technologies capable of being tested on the Moon, a lunar habitat is ideal to test many ECLSS technologies and development sensitive architectural features. This paper will outline the path Mars ECLSS surface systems development must take to successfully establish and utilize a lunar habitat test bed by identifying the major steps and capabilities required, when these capabilities must be implemented to meet an achievable timeline for a mission to Mars and what other development must happen in parallel. Any long-term-stay surface habitat ECLSS will have many commonalities but also many major differences with the International Space Station and the Apollo Program ECLSS. These commonalities and differences will be discussed. The benefits of this approach to achieving a successful Mars mission will be summarized.