Utilization of System Dynamics to Model a Self-Sustained Mars Surface Colony

Abstract

The National Institute of Aerospace hosted the 2015 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts -Academic Linkage competition, whose objective included establishing a fully functional self-sustaining Mars surface colony by the year 2054. 1 Altogether, this task has been broken down into several different components, one involving the development and deployment of colony infrastructure over a 40-year period, and the other involving the utilization of system dynamics for studying the steady-state behavior of all surface colony operations. These surface colony operations prove to be multi-faceted, and are comprised of a wide range of important factors. Some of these factors include colony structure, agriculture and food production, power systems, and communications, all of which can be satisfied by a variety of unique processes. This paper details the work done to optimize the system dynamics of all surface colony operations in an effort to find the optimal combination of different technologies that is both self-sustaining and satisfies all competition requirements, an effort carried out through the utilization of both Matlab and Simulink.