Method

Where the scores come from, and where to distrust them

What the scores are

Each score is an editorial judgment against the written anchors, made from public documentation: operator materials, mission reports, peer-reviewed papers and press coverage. The anchors are public and the arithmetic is open, so the method repeats. A second assessor will not produce identical numbers. Treat the scores as a structured argument, not a measurement.

What the scores are not

This is not an official rating from analogstandards.space, from IGSA-STD-1, or from any operator. It is an independent index built in the same spirit. No station reviewed or endorsed its score. If an operator disagrees, the operator is probably right. The submission form is the place to say so.

Coordinates

Each record is marked exact or approx. Exact means a published position for the facility. Approx means the settlement, crater, valley or campus that hosts it, usually correct to a few kilometers. Several stations do not publish a precise position. Do not navigate by this map.

Selection

Included: crewed habitats and chambers, recurring mission campaigns, expedition and winter-over environments used as formal spaceflight analogs, and field sites of established planetary standing. Excluded: themed attractions with no research or training role, one-off publicity simulations, and proposed stations with no design record. Planned facilities appear but score zero until a crew flies.

Imagery

Every photograph on this site loads at run time from the NASA Image and Video Library. There is no API key and no bundled file. If the API is unreachable, the pages fall back to the star field. NASA material is generally not copyrighted. Read NASA's usage guidelines before you republish it. NASA does not endorse this site.

Pexels needs an API key, so it runs through a serverless function. Set PEXELS_API_KEY in the Netlify environment and a Pexels strip appends itself here. Leave it unset and the function returns 501, then the page skips it. The key never reaches the browser.

Sources

analogstandards.space, the standards work that prompted this rubric.
Global Standardization of Analog Space Missions, and IGSA-STD-1 (2023).
Classifying analogue scenarios and fidelity for deep-space behavioural research — Frontiers in Space Technologies, 2025 (EFCSA).
Space analogs and behavioral health performance research, ESA Topical Team — npj Microgravity, 2024.
NASA Analog Missions: HERA, CHAPEA, NEEMO, D-RATS.
Austrian Space Forum: the AMADEE program and the 2025 World's Biggest Analog.
Mars Desert Research Station crew reports and Mars Society station records.
SAM, HI-SEAS, LunAres, AATC, Astroland, Hydronaut, D-MARS, Habitat Marte, JSRI, Mars Society Kenya.
ESA Concordia, CAVES and PANGAEA. DLR and ESA LUNA and :envihab.
CHASM Analog Wiki and Marspedia.
Imagery: NASA Image and Video Library, and Pexels when a key is set.

Data

The build step validates the dataset and fails on a duplicate ID, an out-of-range coordinate or an out-of-range score. It then writes three files. The same three download from any page under your current weighting. The dataset is CC BY 4.0. Attribute "The Analog Atlas".

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