While at Harvard Graduate School of Design, in late 2019, I had the opportunity to be invited to a NASA sponsored Science and Technology Research Institute (STRI) called Resilient Extra Terrestrial Habitat research institute (RETHi), within Harvard University.

My earlier work done with my advisor Chuck Hoberman and on the Space Exploration Vehicle was instrumental in my getting this position. I had joined as a fabrication, design and human factors consultant, and went on to become a more permanent member, wherein they funded my Master’s thesis through a RETHi grant. The group primarily consisted of roboticists and I was the designer on the team, my focus being the design of the infrastructure that the robots would work with once deployed on Mars. My work at Bertoldi lab was crucial in this project as for the final product I took a lot of inspiration from the research carried out earlier.

Currently, I’m working on a final paper with the group on the work we did since November of 2019.

Above is a poster presented at one of the progress meetings with NASA and RETHi in May of 2020.

Below, I’ve presented some images of research and documentation of one of the physical working models. Some of the work has been left out since the paper is yet to be published.

My focus had been the design of the collapsible, bi-stable, inner habitat, i.e. its form, materials, packaging and deployment strategy and sequence. The images above show form and material explorations that I made in the initial stages and how I arrived at the final design of the inner pod.

Below are photographic documentation of one of the models I had made along with my teammate’s work on the outer shell and the assembly robot.