Overview

To develop NASA’s Moon to Mars Architecture, NASA begins from its broadest goals — the farthest in the future on the timeline — in a process called “architecting from the right.” This process distills NASA’s Moon to Mars Objectives down into the things NASA needs to be able to do to achieve those objectives and then maps them to specific elements, the systems and hardware that will take us back to the Moon and beyond.

Architecting from the right helps NASA ensure that it’s making the right investments now to build the capabilities it will need in the future. The Moon to Mars Architecture is evolvable, with capabilities building on one another to enable increasingly ambitious missions. The lessons we learn by exploring the Moon will help us decide how to venture on to Mars and beyond.

Decomposition Features

This process of architecting from the right translates desired outcomes (the objectives) into the features of an architecture needed to produce them, or characteristics and needs. These characteristics and needs are further distilled into actionable functions and use cases that must be employed to produce them. From there, engineers group functions and use cases into exploration elements or reference missions that could effectively provide that subset of capabilities.

Objective decomposition is part of the agency’s annual Architecture Concept Review process. NASA documents the decomposition a model-based systems engineering environment, where use cases and functions can be further mapped to individual requirements owned by elements’ implementing programs.

Note: The graphic above does not reflect the most up-to-date objective decomposition. Download the most recent objective mapping tables for the latest.

Architecture Decision Roadmapping

Developing an exploration architecture requires an incredible number of decisions across NASA. Each decision has precedent relationships with many other decisions. Although there is no “right” order in which to make these decisions, there is a logical order. As a simple example, when developing a Mars architecture, a decision about the number of astronauts to send to Mars orbit limits the number of astronauts an architecture can send to the Martian surface, so it makes sense to decide how many crew are needed on the surface to achieve mission objectives before limiting the Mars transportation system’s crew complement.

While every decision is important,  decisions with major flow-down impacts on other subsequent decisions are categorized as priority decisions. Mapping out these priority decisions and making them at the appropriate time is key to the success of an architecture development effort. NASA tracks these priority decisions and their flow-down impacts using digital engineering tools. As part of the annual Architecture Concept Review cycle, NASA’s architecture teams perform trade studies and analysis that help agency leaders make informed decisions. Decisions — whether already made or in analysis — are captured in the Architecture Definition Document. The value of the digital decision roadmapping tool is that it allows NASA to quickly assess the impacts of delaying — or accelerating — these important architecture decisions, thus providing decision makers more insight and flexibility.

Architecture-Driven Technology Gaps

As part of the architecture definition effort, NASA has identified technologies that the agency must mature or develop to achieve the Moon to Mars Objectives. The Architecture Definition Document captures those areas of needed innovation in the form of architecture-driven technology gaps. These gaps outline capabilities that the architecture cannot accomplish with existing technology.  

NASA defines these architecture-driven technology gaps in solution-agnostic terms. The agency recognizes that it needs to mature a capability but does not prescribe or prejudice an approach or technology that could supply that capability.  

Public documentation of the technology gaps allows NASA to communicate desired capabilities to industry and international partners. Each gap represents a fruitful area for research, development, and innovation that can help NASA and its partners invest technology development resources wisely.