Agent Mars: Multi-Agent Simulation for Multi-Planetary Life Exploration and Settlement

TL;DR

Agent Mars is a comprehensive multi-agent simulation framework that models Mars base operations, enabling realistic, auditable, and scalable studies of multi-agent coordination in space exploration scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed, hierarchical simulation platform with novel coordination, failover, and leadership mechanisms for Mars missions, advancing space AI research.

Findings

Coordination trade-offs identified in simulated scenarios

Cross-layer collaboration reduces operational overhead

Leadership strategies improve reliability under stress

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has transformed robotics, healthcare, industry, and scientific discovery, yet a major frontier may lie beyond Earth. Space exploration and settlement offer vast environments and resources, but impose constraints unmatched on Earth: delayed/intermittent communications, extreme resource scarcity, heterogeneous expertise, and strict safety, accountability, and command authority. The key challenge is auditable coordination among specialised humans, robots, and digital services in a safety-critical system-of-systems. We introduce Agent Mars, an open, end-to-end multi-agent simulation framework for Mars base operations. Agent Mars formalises a realistic organisation with a 93-agent roster across seven layers of command and execution (human roles and physical assets), enabling base-scale studies beyond toy settings. It implements hierarchical and cross-layer coordination that preserves chain-of-command while allowing vetted cross-layer exchanges with audit trails; supports dynamic role handover with automatic failover under outages; and enables phase-dependent leadership for routine operations, emergencies, and science campaigns. Agent Mars further models mission-critical mechanisms-scenario-aware short/long-horizon memory, configurable propose-vote consensus, and translator-mediated heterogeneous protocols-to capture how teams align under stress. To quantify behaviour, we propose the Agent Mars Performance Index (AMPI), an interpretable composite score with diagnostic sub-metrics. Across 13 reproducible Mars-relevant operational scripts, Agent Mars reveals coordination trade-offs and identifies regimes where curated cross-layer collaboration and functional leadership reduce overhead without sacrificing reliability. Agent Mars provides a benchmarkable, auditable foundation for Space AI.