Multifunctional Systems for Planetary Exploration

Abstract

We summarize the findings and recommendations of the Adaptive Multifunctional Systems for Micro-climate Control Study held at the Caltech Keck Institute for Space Studies. The objective of the Study was to adapt the most recent advances in multifunctional reconfigurable and adaptive systems to enable a microenvironment control to enable space exploration in extreme environments of the Solar System. The technical goal was to identify the most efficient materials, architectures, structures, system autonomy and energy management solutions needed to optimally project or generate a micro - environment around space assets. An important aspect of the Study was the consideration of distributed cellular systems as an architecture for multifunctional systems.