The Impact Report showcases RETHi’s mission of tackling the challenges associated with space habitats and reusable infrastructure. This is done through a collection of projects and research highlights, completed by various RETHi investigators within three major thrusts: Resilience, Awareness and Robotics.
Podcast: Building Resilient Space Habitats. In this podcast, we explore the HARSH cyber-physical testbed at Purdue’s RETHi Institute. It’s a facility designed to test technologies for smart, autonomous habitats needed for long-term presence on the Moon and Mars. Discover how HARSH combines real hardware and virtual models to simulate disruptions and develop resilient systems for deep space. This content was generated with the assistance of Google’s NotebookLM (2025 version).
Humans have always aspired to live among the stars — and Purdue University researchers are now working to make it happen. The Resilient Extra-Terrestrial Habitat institute (RETHi), a NASA-funded Space Technology Research Institute, explores how to make future space habitats resilient to disruptions and able to deal with complex situations autonomously.
Prof. Shirley J Dyke and Julio A Ramirez visited Planet Smart City in Turin, Italy on June 27th, 2024. Planet Smart City is a global leader in smart affordable housing that designs and builds cities and neighborhoods. Their multi-disciplinary teams integrate architectural, digital/data, environmental and social innovation solutions to deliver high-quality low-cost homes, creating lasting value. Dr. Dyke’s presentation was entitled "Earth-independent Resilient and Sustainable Space Habitats” and provided an overview of the research being conducted within the RETH institute toward this vision.
This article and video, publihsed by Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), highlights how roboticists develop robots for Resilient ExtraTerrestrial Habitats.
Future space habitats will require robots to perform autonomous actions when astronauts are not present. That's why RETHi member David Cappelleri is using machine learning to train a robot to recognize a jumbled pile of items, locate the one item it needs, and retrieve it in the most efficient way. It's one small step to creating resilient and versatile robots that can assist astronauts in maintaining future extraterrestrial habitats on the Moon, on Mars, or in deep space.
This essay of The Lunar Dispatch discusses the design of habitats on the Moon.
This issue of UConn's School of Engineering News features the RETH cyber-physical testbed.
Purdue students were interviewed on the Purdue Libraries' "Make Your Story" podcast about the 3D printed space habitat model that they developed.
This issue of Frontiers, a Purdue College of Engineering Magazine, features RETHi as one of the large research institutes headquartered at Purdue.
The San Antonio Express News highlights UTSA's involvement with the RETH Institute.
Third in a three-part series about cutting-edge structural engineering research taking place at UTSA. Sterling Reynolds's work in RETHi is highlighted.
This article is the second in a three-part series about cutting-edge structural engineering research taking place at UTSA. Dr. Montoya's work on space habitats is mentioned.
The first in a series on the structural engineering faculty at UTSA.