Aurelia in 2023: Space architecture & design
It’s hard to believe we’re already celebrating Aurelia’s second year of existence. This year saw the team grow to 15+ exceptional staff, fellows and interns, as we built a nearly 30’ span space habitat demo, released a first-of-its-kind space architecture database, trained new flyers on how to conduct research in zero-g, and launched a new policy arm to advance humanism in space exploration.
Particularly rewarding has been the sense that Aurelia is engaging with and contributing to a flourishing space community—that we have carved out a unique vision for a real-life Starfleet Academy that both complements and builds upon the many remarkable efforts underway across industry and academia.
To wit: We presented our Space Architecture Trade Study database at ICES. We joined panels and gave talks at events ranging from San Diego Comic Con to The Economist’s Space Economy Summit to AIAA’s ASCEND. Along with Axiom, we co-hosted the Humans in Space Challenge, an initiative and investment innovation challenge led by Boryung to foster new space companies that will profoundly benefit health outcomes for life on Earth.
Aurelia co-hosted the annual space event, Beyond the Cradle, with MIT Media Lab, continuing a fruitful relationship with our peers and collaborators at the MIT Space Exploration Initiative. I’m also proud to have publicly announced the launch of Aurelia Foundry, a sister organization to Aurelia Institute that invests in and supports the development of deep tech at the nexus of space, AI, and climate. These three organizations—Aurelia Institute, Aurelia Foundry, and MIT SEI—are separate and collaborating entities that contribute in their own unique ways to a shared, larger ecosystem.
Iteration and scale are at the core of our approach, which you’ll see unfold in all of our projects below. We hope you have enjoyed watching as our team of engineers, designers, and architects build out Aurelia’s flagship projects. We are particularly grateful to our board, our advisory council, and to our amazing network of space friends and colleagues who have teamed up with us to deploy our vision–
–that more people, from all walks of life, will see themselves in the future of space exploration–
–that we will build new infrastructure to invite, to house, and to delight them there–
–and that we will do this as a symbiotic endeavor benefitting, and protecting, life on Earth–
Read on for more of this year’s highlights from Aurelia’s three pillars: space habitat R&D, education and outreach, and policy.
Wishing you a peaceful holiday season, and more access to space in 2024!
Ariel Ekblaw, CEO
A diagram of the TESSERAE concept represented at various scales: [i] middle, spaceflight testing tile; [ii] left, human-sized Earth-based pavilion; and [iii] right, full modules & clusters documented with other space habitats in a trade study. Read on below for our R&D progress across elements i–iii.
Space Habitat R&D: TESSERAE Development Across Scales
Aurelia Institute is committed to building the coming generations of space habitats—the structures we will inhabit as we travel, work, and live in LEO and beyond. The first test case for this new method of reconfigurable space habitation is TESSERAE (Tessellated Electromagnetic Space Structures for the Exploration of Reconfigurable, Adaptive Environments), the self-assembling space architecture prototype aimed at enabling a safer, less expensive, more sustainable and efficient mode of in-space building.
TESSERAE scale I: Spaceflight testing in miniature
TESSERAE’s next prototype phase is now actively underway, as we iteratively build and test the hardware platform towards a full 32-tile sphere deployment in orbit onboard the ISS next year. The Gen 4 tile prototypes will demonstrate new self-assembly behavior, improved bonding and reconfigurability, solar charging capability, and a new dispensing system in preparation for future tests outside of the space station.
TESSERAE scale II: Human-size pavilion demo
In parallel with the spaceflight-focused hardware iteration, the team has been working on the Pavilion, a terrestrial mock-up of our future habitat concept for TESSERAE. The goal of the Pavilion is to engage designers, researchers, and the public on the future of life in space, inspiring visitors to imagine themselves living in space and what it takes to design for microgravity.
Following our first full-scale build of the TESSERAE Pavilion last spring, the engineering and design team has been hard at work on some key advances in the experience, hardware, and modular implementation of our earthbound space habitat demo.
Over the summer we turned our attention to one of the Pavilion’s signature features: functional interior tiles that mount into the structure. The first of these, Green Vault, is a living garden environment that maintains a variety of herbs and vegetables. Led by Max and Che-Wei, the team implemented a new magnet-and-gas-spring latching mechanism for the vault enclosure and improved the 3D-printed pods containing the plants. A second tile, the Fermentation Station, explores the value of microbes to provide shelf-stable, nutritious, and flavorful food in space, developed in collaboration with Cofab Design.
The team is working towards another complete Pavilion build in February 2024 to do full installations of these new and upgraded elements, including unique inflatable walls, a rose-window aquaculture cupola, and more. We’ll be bringing the Pavilion on a road show in 2024 and look forward to sharing our vision for next-generation space architecture with the public.
Have an idea for a great place to bring the Pavilion? Are you dreaming of something you would want in YOUR space habitat of the future? Write to the team at hello@aureliainstitute.org and tell us more!
TESSERAE scale III: Trade study
Since the first phase of our Space Architecture Trade Study was published and presented at ICES this summer, the database has continued to expand, and now features over 130 space architecture entries. Aurelia Institute has continued to engage with the broader bioastronautics community, including the NASA Moon to Mars Development Office. Other concepts have been sourced from the broader space architecture community, credible science fiction, new start-ups, and historical examples.
A diagram exploring possible configurations for mounting photovoltaic arrays (PVA) and radiators to the TESSERAE habitat.
Education and Outreach
This year saw the official launch of Aurelia Academy: a series of courses, flight experiences, consulting, mentoring, and community building – all in service of our mission to build the empowered, principled, and inclusive space workforce needed for the next generation of spacefaring challenges.
We ran the first full semester of our flagship course, Microgravity Project Design, with a diverse cohort of researchers, innovators, and cultural ambassadors. The class incorporated design, research, operations, and storytelling in addition to traditional aerospace approaches in science and engineering.
Some of the projects among this cohort included:
Projects to improve navigation within large, open volumes in space, including gecko skin-inspired mobility aids and soft robotics
Projects testing how Earth-designed items perform in microgravity, from biology lab equipment to asthma inhalers
An outreach project demonstrating various physics phenomena in microgravity for a middle- and high-school-age audience
Participants who successfully completed the course were invited to join the Horizon zero-gravity flight cohort, who will fly with their projects on our next parabolic flight. Aurelia Institute will be presenting a paper focused on the first two years of the Horizon education program, including course curriculums, student parabolic flight experiences, and program outcomes, at the 2024 AIAA SciTech Conference on January 8.
We are also delighted to be partnering with the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship internship program as a host employer for 2024, further expanding our commitment to burst open access to the space industry!
Policy
Aurelia Institute’s Center for Space Ethics & Policy is moving full steam ahead! We have assembled an amazing group of collaborators and are particularly excited to announce our newest Aurelia Fellow, Dr. Patrick Lin. A professor of philosophy, Dr. Lin is director of the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group at California Polytechnic State University. We are honored to have Dr. Lin’s expertise in support of Aurelia’s policy and ethics efforts.
We are finalizing plans for the Center’s first workshop and open submission prize competition, planned for Q2 2024, to coincide with our annual Beyond the Cradle event with MIT. Save the date for April 4th and tune in or join us in-person on your way to the big eclipse that weekend!
Looking Forward
Over the next year, we aim to offer many new opportunities to engage with Aurelia’s work. With an upcoming TESSERAE orbital launch and selection for the next Horizon zero-g flights, there will be much research to deploy and share! From Beyond the Cradle 2024 (save the date for April 4th!) to our new and expanded Academy offerings, we’ll continue to open up pathways to knowledge and participation in the ever-growing space endeavor. Thanks as always for coming along on the journey with us.
Ad astra!