Door Panels

Door Panels are an accessory for the hab planned to be ready for the 2009-10 Mission Daedalus. Ideally the panels will interact with the EECOM software and the EECOM Door Card to tell astronauts whether a door is or is not safe to open.

Mechanism

The door panels themselves consist of a number of LEDS attached to a wooden block and solderred to metal plates on the tops of doors. They are arranged such that when a door is closed the metal plates will touch, which bridges a connection along CAT-5 cables on the roof of the hab between the panel itself and the dedicated EECOM computer in the control room. Through this connection the door card transmits information regarding whether the door is closed, whether the room is sufficiently pressurized, and whether it has sufficient atmosphere to be openable. A corresponding LED lights up on the panel for each of these that is true, and an astronaut must follow IVA procedure when opening a door the corresponding panel of which does not have all 3 LEDs on.