Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture - SICSA

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Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture - SICSA

SICSA has 30+ years of experience in habitat research and design for space and extreme environments. Hines College of Architectures.

The Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA) is a research and design organization within the University of Houston’s Gerald D. SICSA brings more than 30 years of internationally recognized experience in habitat research, planning and design for space and extreme terrestrial environments. Such settings share many urgent problems and issues. They typically impose logistic transp

ort challenges for people, equipment and supplies; present severe facility construction and operational constraints; demand careful attention to habitability, performance and safety under isolated, confined conditions; and heavily rely upon all practical means to optimize energy-efficient, ecologically-responsible strategies. Terrestrial planning applications include remote oil and gas exploration/production camps; emergency natural disaster response operations and shelters; and rapid military troop deployment accommodations for harsh, undeveloped locales. We are academic leaders in the field of space architecture and are also active in planning and design of facilities for extreme environments on Earth. Included are ocean facilities, polar research stations and human disaster accommodations. We hosted a large international and interdisciplinary conference dealing with these topics with 400+ attendees from 12 countries. We offer the world’s only Space Architecture graduate program which grants a Master of Science-Space Architecture degree with participants that include professionals from NASA and major aerospace corporations along with international students. Our projects and programs have been featured in television and magazine productions throughout the world. SICSA’s clients and affiliates include NASA and numerous other leading aerospace and advanced technology organizations.

04/11/2026

Unbelievably beautiful and perfect splash down for Integrity!

10/11/2025

Anyone who is interested in human exploration of Mars and future habitation on the red planet: a new space architecture course of the AIAA Space Architecture Technical Committee online lecture course will start on October 20: https://aiaa.org/courses/space-architecture-designing-a-mars-habitation-system
Looking forward to seeing you there!

Instructed by unparalleled experts from the AIAA Space Architecture Technical Committee, this course explores the design, planning, and operational challenges of establishing human habitation on Mars.

05/26/2025

The 20th ASCE ASD Biennial International Conference on Engineering, Science, Construction and Operations in Challenging Environments (Earth & Space 2026) Conference will be held in Aggieland (College Station, Texas, USA), April 2026.

The Conference organizers are soliciting papers for presentation at the Conference. At this time, abstracts are being accepted, with draft and final manuscripts being due on the dates mentioned below. The abstract should contain the title of the paper, authors’ names, affiliations, contact information, and 500 words of technical description on the presentation topic typed in no smaller than 10-point font size. To submit an abstract, please use this link https://sites.google.com/tamu.edu/asce/submissions/call-for-abstracts

If you have questions or need assistance, contact us at [email protected] or directly with any of the conference chairs listed in the attached flyer.

Important Dates
• Call for abstracts opens: May 7, 2025
• Abstracts due: June 9, 2025
• Notification of abstract acceptance: July 7, 2025
• Full-Length Draft Papers due: September 1, 2025
• Paper peer reviews complete; notification of acceptance: November 15, 2025
• Revised final papers due: December 15, 2025

10/23/2024

The International Astronautical Congress in Milan has come to a close, and it was a fantastic experience for us at SICSA .uh . We presented several Technical Papers and Interactive Presentations at the Congress. It was a week filled with interesting sessions and valuable meetings among experts in the field. What an exciting period for the Space Exploration and Space Architecture.

08/16/2024

Another Space Architecture workshop took place in Houston, where students from St Paul Convent School in Hong Kong competed in a Lunar Habitat project development.
Collaboration between and .uh.

06/23/2024

We are thrilled to invite you to the sixth Space Architecture Symposium 2024.
Organized by the Space Architecture Technical Committee of the AIAA and hosted by Politecnico di Milano, the SAS2024 is a full day of panels, working sessions, discussions and a film screening all about the growing field of Space Architecture. A highlight of the activities will be a chance to contribute to the first every Decadal Survey for Space Architecture.

Please join us on Saturday 19.October.2024, the day after the conclusion of the International Astronautical Congress 2024.

06/05/2024

Many thanks to faculty of Lisbon University Maria João Durão, Jorge Nunes and Carlos Ferreira for organizing a Space Architecture Dr. Olga Bannova's lecture at the Faculty of Architecture on May 28th: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://youtu.be/3QSwRpbLahg__;!!LkSTlj0I!DidbiqxvgfRLMUI3wDJireeRRIIwK6FLAGDrOlSRgakKdczd0R66VMNJblP8t2ExjdNjccAIGTc61JXwa-n_I-RJtfh_qA$

06/01/2024

Students from the Philippines visited .uh for a workshop in collaboration with . They spent three inspiring days working on space architecture and developing a proposed lunar habitat.

The Yellow group won first place for the best project. 🏆

Congratulations to all the hardworking students who participated in the workshop!

04/13/2024

In the last two weeks, .uh hosted Unit 2 at the . AA Moonshot VS offers three separate workshops (Unit 1, Unit 2, and Unit 3) that introduce students to designing in the context of Moon inhabitation, exposing students to a much greater level of agility and collaboration which already exists in the space industry. With different scopes, each workshop unit will introduce students to novel technologies and design mythologies such as design gamification, large-scale digital fabrication, and artificial intelligence tools to develop their proposals, fostering an environment to explore the tangential fields created at the junction of architecture, design, and the space industry

03/22/2024

We are happy to welcome our new Faculty Member Vittorio Netti.

Vittorio attended the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA) in 2019 as a student in the world's only Master of Engineering course in space Architecture.

In 2024 he joins as a faculty member and will teach for the course SPAC6398: Evaluation and Validation of Space Habitats.

12/13/2023

.uh has been featured in this semester's issue of the 's Magazine!

You can take a look at the article at: https://stories.uh.edu/magazine/magazine/fall-2023/space-race/index.html

In the meantime, here at .uh we are pressing on to achieve the best Research and Design standards when it comes to the new challenges that the New Space Race demands.

Address

4200 Elgin Street
Houston, TX
77204

Website

http://sicsa.egr.uh.edu/

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