Project number
26065
Organization
UA Biosphere 2
Offering
ENGR498-F2025-S2026
The Biosphere 2 – Landscape Evolution Observatory was recently awarded the Office of Research and Partnership’s inaugural 2025 Big Idea Challenge (BIC).
Our grand challenge is to address global environmental problems through the emerging science of biological landscape terraformation—a discipline inspired by the vision of sustaining or creating complex, multifunctional ecosystems that support diverse lifeforms, including human communities, on Earth, Mars, and beyond.
As part of our BIC initiative, we will develop advanced AI and digital twin models capable of predicting, initiating, and guiding terraformation processes. To validate these models for Mars-relevant applications, we must first establish dedicated experimental infrastructure.
A senior design engineering team will be mentored to design and prototype this infrastructure in the form of a high-fidelity controlled-environment chamber. The chamber will allow precise regulation of key environmental variables, including atmospheric pressure, gas composition, irrigation, temperature, and humidity. An integrated array of sensors will provide continuous, high-resolution monitoring and control, enabling rigorous testing and iterative refinement of our digital twin simulations.
This infrastructure will serve as a critical step toward bridging predictive models with real-world planetary landscape terraformation experiments.
Our grand challenge is to address global environmental problems through the emerging science of biological landscape terraformation—a discipline inspired by the vision of sustaining or creating complex, multifunctional ecosystems that support diverse lifeforms, including human communities, on Earth, Mars, and beyond.
As part of our BIC initiative, we will develop advanced AI and digital twin models capable of predicting, initiating, and guiding terraformation processes. To validate these models for Mars-relevant applications, we must first establish dedicated experimental infrastructure.
A senior design engineering team will be mentored to design and prototype this infrastructure in the form of a high-fidelity controlled-environment chamber. The chamber will allow precise regulation of key environmental variables, including atmospheric pressure, gas composition, irrigation, temperature, and humidity. An integrated array of sensors will provide continuous, high-resolution monitoring and control, enabling rigorous testing and iterative refinement of our digital twin simulations.
This infrastructure will serve as a critical step toward bridging predictive models with real-world planetary landscape terraformation experiments.