Collaborated With: The Strategic Engineering Research Group

The United States has set its sights on Mars as the next giant leap in human spaceflight, and researchers at MIT are working towards that goal every day. With videos, slides, and lively discussion, the panel will present a brief overview of ongoing research in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics related to human missions to Mars. PhD candidates from these labs will explain the challenges of getting to and living on Mars, and how the department's research tackles life support and habitation, interplanetary transportation, maintenance logistics, in-space manufacturing, human health, and the use of local resources. The panel will look at different strategies and mission plans for Mars exploration, including robotic precursor missions.
The panel will open start with a quick overview of the challenges of sending humans to Mars, followed by brief talks, with slides and videos, from each panelist on a particular topic (see below) and how MIT research at MIT is addressing these challenges. The presentation will end with questions from the audience.
Panelists include:
Forrest Meyen (MIT Man Vehicle Lab) - MOXIE and In-Situ Resource Utilization
Catherine Miller (MIT Space Propulsion Lab) - Electric propulsion for interplanetary flight
Conor Cullinane (MIT Man Vehicle Lab/Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program) - Space suits and extravehicular activity
Sydney Do (MIT Strategic Engineering Research Group) - Habitation, life support, and systems architecture
Andrew Owens (MIT Strategic Engineering Research Group) - Maintenance logistics, reliability, and In-Space Manufacturing