The Virtual Habitat – A tool for dynamic life support system simulations

•An integral and dynamic LSS simulation (V-HAB) was developed and tested.•Dynamic representations of all LSS members, including the crew, are considered.•V-HAB is able to simulate LSS function for entire mission scenarios.•V-HAB was validated against ground tests and against ISS flight data.•A dynamic simulation of a Mars Mission LSS demonstrates the added value of V-HAB. In this paper we present the Virtual Habitat (V-HAB) model, which simulates on a system level the dynamics of entire mission scenarios for any given life support system (LSS) including a dynamic representation of the crew. We first present the V-HAB architecture. Thereafter we validate in selected case studies the V-HAB submodules. Finally, we demonstrate the overall abilities of V-HAB by first simulating the LSS of the International Space Station (ISS) and showing how close this comes to real data. In a second case study we simulate the LSS dynamics of a Mars mission scenario. We thus show that V-HAB is able to support LSS design processes, giving LSS designers a set of dynamic decision parameters (e.g. stability, robustness, effective crew time) at hand that supplement or even substitute the common Equivalent System Mass (ESM) quantities as a proxy for LSS hardware costs. The work presented here builds on a LSS heritage by the exploration group at the Technical University at Munich (TUM) dating from even before 2006.