SIMOC Live interface update
SIMOC paper published at ICES 2026, Puerto Rico
SIMOC Live: A Multi-Habitat Sensor Array Deployment at the World’s Biggest Analog Mission by Franco Carbognani, Ezio Melotti, Kai Staats, and Shantanusinh Parmar; ICES 2026, Rio Grande, Puerto Rico; presented by Kai Staats.
“The World’s Biggest Analog 2025 campaign was the largest synchronized analog mission ever attempted. Building upon the Scalable, Interactive Model of an Off-World Community (SIMOC) Live platform introduced to ICES in 2025, this paper reports on the deployment of standardized environmental sensor arrays within participating habitats and the development of a unified data visualization infrastructure for the World’s Biggest Analog Mission Control Center in Vienna. Eight habitats, scattered across four continents, received one or more SIMOC Live sensor arrays built on Raspberry Pi hardware and modular Adafruit environmental sensors measuring environmental levels for CO₂, temperature, humidity, pressure and VOCs … results demonstrate reliable end-to-end telemetry performances which resulted in effective situational awareness for Mission Control Center operators. This work aims to establish a benchmark for the feasibility of a scalable, multi-habitat ECLSS-monitoring sensor array network.”
New SIMOC Live interface
The SIMOC team is actively engaged in the development of the SIMOC Live sensor array hardware and on-board web interface. Driven by an increasing number of users and their diverse deployments, the intent is to provide a robust visualization interface coupled with a light, functional data administration environment. With a phone or tablet in hand, one can quickly review the data on-board any given SIMOC Live stand-alone sensor array configured for the “stand-alone” mode (on-board DHCP, web service).
A new User Story to guide the way
Today Kai Staats, project lead for SIMOC, provided the development team with a new User Story to guide redevelopment of the SIMOC Live “stand-alone” unit composed of a Raspberry Pi Zero, one or more Adafruit sensors, and an on-board DHCP server and web interface.
THE STORY
User desires to employ SIMOC Live to monitor air quality in a remote location, far from an urban environment where grid power, cell reception, and radio wifi are not available.User has deployed multiple units, but the distance between them is too great or obstacles inhibit a mesh network.
a) User will physically visit the field site once per [month, quarter, year].
b) Power is provided to the SIMOC Live unit via [solar, wind, portable battery pack, generator].
c) All data must be stored locally, on-board the SIMOC Live unit.
User returns to each unit, one at a time in succession, to view and/or download data.
If included, an on-board OLED screen provides current status of each primary data collection channel for each sensor. For example, …
Support update
The SIMOC team is slowly but surely working to correct a number of small but important issues in the SIMOC experience, as follows:
- Presets
- Front-end library updates and fixes
- Deploying latest version of all libraries
- Designing and prototyping new web dashboard
SIMOC Live active in 8 habitats across 4 continents
Born of the Analog Astronaut Community, the World’s Biggest Analog (WBA) is a volunteer-based, two weeks mission in which 16 Moon and Mars habitats across 5 continents will attempt the largest synchronized analog mission ever attempted.
SAM Director of Research Kai Staats brought SIMOC Live to the WBA as one of the proposed science projects. SIMOC Live is a real-time air quality monitoring extension to the SIMOC agent-based model and educational web interface. Once accepted in 2024, the all-volunteer SIMOC team composed of Ezio Melotti, Franco Carbognani, and Shantanu Parmar worked to prepare a fully revised Raspberry Pi image and semi-automated configuration that enables each sensor array, no matter its location on Earth, to direct its data stream to a central repository on server. The Mission Control Center hosted by the Austrian Space Forum is then able to monitor the air quality for all of the habitats on a single computer monitor.
One or more SIMOC Live sensor arrays was shipped to eight habitats on four continents such that a live data broadcast is now providing a single-screen monitor in the Austrian Space Forum’s Mission Control Center. As such, the air quality of each represented habitat is presented in real-time.
SIMOC papers presented at ICES 2025
The International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES) in Prague offered a great platform to showcase recent achievements in SIMOC and SAM. Griffin Hentzen presented a paper written by Dr. James Knox, NASA veteran, who with the SAM team is designing an advanced CO2 scrubber for integration into the new SAM Experimental Air Revitalization Laborator (EARL), currently in construction. This scrubber will close the air quality management loop in the Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) of SAM, further increasing mission fidelity during analog inclusions.
Griffin also presented a paper on behalf of Dr. Cameron Smith on the first prototype of a portable, pressurized, emergency shelter for deployment on Mars.
SAM has since the spring of 2024 been working with the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany, under Dr. Gisela Detrell, where graduate student Fabio Schäfer is designing a large scale photobioreactor to be installed in the new SAM EARL facility. Fabio presented a poster on how this system will support future bioregenerative atmosphere revitalization research. This project is the first to implement a photobioreactor (algae-based CO2 sequestration) of this scale in an analog facility, opening a multitude of opportunities and research questions to be studied at SAM.
Also from TUM, Lucien Volk shared his progress on a photobioreactor simulation model built in SIMOC. The capability to simulate realistic photobioreactor behavior is important to design robust hybrid and bioregenerative life support systems for future missions to space. This previous article shares details about his work.
As always, ICES was a great opportunity for the SIMOC-SAM and TUM working groups to gather and connect with the greater ECLSS community.
Visit the SIMOC and SAM Publications page to learn more …
Microalgae and Photobioreactors for SIMOC
Figure: Proposed ECLSS concept for DIANA, adapted for simulation in SIMOC.
Microalgae and Photobioreactors for SIMOC
by Lucien Volk, Masters student candidate
Technical University at Munich (TUM), Munich, Germany
Future space exploration missions aim to venture to the Moon, Mars and beyond. It is the current consensus in the ECLSS community, that these long durations missions will require hybrid and biological life support systems for these missions to be realistically feasible. Microalgae grown in photobioreactors seems to be a promising component part of these necessary life support system architectures since they can absorb the CO2 human’s breath out while producing the vital O2. Additionally, they can potentially provide several other services such as food production and wastewater treatment. The goal of the research performed at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) was to implement a microalgae photobioreactor in SIMOC to enhance its capabilities and study the impact of photobioreactors on a life support system architecture.
The photobioreactor implemented was based on the research work performed under the “PBR@LSR” project at the University of Stuttgart [1]. SIMOC was able to reproduce the gas characteristics observed in the experiment. With regards to food production, the research at TUM concluded that a microalgae photobioreactor operated in a semi-continuous mode (algae is grown continuously and only partially harvested) is likely to produce more biomass than a photobioreactor operated in batch mode (algae is fully harvested every cycle). However, required photobioreactor volume heavily depends on whether CO2 is absorbed, O2 produced, or food provided and can be up to 500L per person. Therefore, a microalgae photobioreactor is often geared towards a specific task.
Finally, the microalgae photobioreactor was implemented as part of a proposed Moon base, specifically the base concept “DIANA” of Astraeus e.V. [2]. Here, SIMOC revealed that a photobioreactor could contribute to a stable ECLSS system providing 30g/d of food per crewmember, producing parts of the necessary O2 and processing parts of the CO2. While it was shown that microalgae photobioreactors could be implemented in SIMOC, several improvements must be made to said model to be more precise and usable before it can become an official component in SIMOC.
The research work performed with regards to microalgae photobioreactors and SIMOC will be presented as a poster at ICES 2025, pending approval of the abstract.
Sources
[1] H. Helisch et al., “High density long-term cultivation of Chlorella vulgaris SAG 211-12 in a novel microgravity-capable membrane raceway photobioreactor for future bioregenerative life support in SPACE,” Life Science in Space Research, pp. 91–107, 2019, ISSN: 2214-5524. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lssr.2019.08.001.
[2] D. Acker et al., “DIANA-Dedicated Infrastructure and Architecture for Near-Earth Astronautics,” 51st International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2022.
Scalable, Interactive Model of an Off-World Community at NSTA
by Meridith Greythorne and Kai Staats
for the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA)
“The Scalable, Interactive Model of an Off-World Community (SIMOC) is a computer simulation of a human habitat on Mars. Built upon decades of NASA research and authentic science processes, SIMOC is both a research-grade simulation and an engaging web-based tool for science education. Users access an intuitive web interface to select mission duration, inhabitants and life support modules, crew quarters and greenhouse sizes, food rations and cultivar seeds, and energy production and storage systems.
SIMOC engages citizen scientists and learners of all ages in the design of long-duration other-world habitats (with an emphasis on Mars), where the balance between mechanical and plant-based life support will be crucial. For the past three years, SIMOC has enjoyed expanding engagement in virtual and physical classrooms, available for free via the National Geographic Education resource library or local installation.
Using a Next Generation Science Standards-aligned curriculum, educators have explored creative applications of SIMOC, from single class time simulations to Mars habitats built from cardboard boxes with live carbon dioxide sensors; from essays on the challenges of human space exploration to full semester design and fabrication of habitats complete with student-built mock-ups in miniature.”
SIMOC Live at the Arizona Science Center
Do you have what it takes to live on Mars?
The Arizona Science Center in downtown Phoenix, Arizona proudly welcomes SIMOC to the My Digital World, Level 3 exhibit floor.
The exhibit, which opened mid November 2024 enables guests to test a Mars habitat of their own design. Guests are tasked with configuring essential components for survival, including carefully calculated food rations, efficient life support systems, reliable solar panels and batteries, and comfortable crew quarters. They must also design a greenhouse with thoughtfully selected plant varieties to purify the air and produce sustenance. Once these elements are set, guests activate the simulation model to assess whether their astronauts can thrive—or if critical adjustments are still needed to secure their survival.