Marss

Part of the Celestial project.

Marss is a Rust Mars-system simulation core.

It computes state, evolves that state over time, and exposes simulation-ready data for downstream consumers. It is meant to sit behind endpoints, IPC, or another orchestrating runtime. It is not a UI crate, not a viewer, and not a frontend.

Scope

Marss currently ships as:

• a Cargo package named marss
• a Rust library crate imported as marss
• a runtime binary named marss

The project combines scientific subsystems for:

• atmosphere
• biosphere
• geodata
• geology
• hydrology
• lighting
• physics
• rendering-oriented physical state
• satellites
• temporal systems
• terrain

The library exposes reusable domain modules. The binary assembles them into a continuously ticking Mars runtime.

What This Crate Is For

Use Marss when you need one of these:

• a Rust dependency for Mars-system simulation logic
• a runtime process that advances Mars state continuously
• a backend core behind REST, gRPC, WebSocket, CLI, or custom IPC endpoints
• an orchestrated Mars node inside a larger multi-body simulation system
• a downstream consumer of scientific primitives provided by sciforge

What This Crate Will Not Do

Marss does not provide:

• any UI
• any viewer
• any frontend
• any visualization layer
• any render window or presentation loop
• any bundled large datasets
• any hardcoded dependency on sibling repositories

If you want visual output, that belongs in another crate or another process consuming Marss.

Key Physical Parameters

Key Features

• CO₂-dominated atmosphere with dust storm modeling
• Olympus Mons (21.9 km) and Tharsis volcanic province
• Phobos and Deimos satellite dynamics
• Polar ice caps (H₂O + CO₂ ice)
• Ancient hydrology (Oceanus Borealis, Kasei Valles, Jezero crater lake)
• Martian sol/year calendar and solar longitude (Ls) tracking
• Butterscotch sky rendering from Rayleigh/dust scattering

Current Status

• version: 0.0.1
• edition: 2024
• license: MIT
• validation gates: cargo fmt, cargo clippy, cargo test

Architecture

Marss is split into domain modules plus a runtime binary.

Package Name, Library Name, Binary Name

• Cargo package name: marss
• Rust library import path: marss
• binary name: marss

Dependency declaration:

[dependencies]
marss = "0.0.1"

Rust import path:

use marss::physics::orbit;

Runtime Binary

The binary in src/main.rs is a long-running simulation process.

Today it:

• constructs a full Mars state object
• advances simulation time continuously
• updates orbital state, rotation, temporal state, satellite state, climate, hydrology, terrain, clouds, shaders, and observer-local state
• keeps running until externally stopped

It does not open a window, draw frames, or embed any visual dashboard.

Why There Is a rendering Module

The rendering module provides physically meaningful data structures and computations for atmospheric scattering parameters, dust rendering, shader-oriented physical uniforms, and material parameters tied to simulated state. It does not make this crate a visual application.

Examples

• cargo run --example climate_sim
• cargo run --example earthquake_sim
• cargo run --example tidal_sim

Validation

cargo fmt --check
cargo clippy
cargo test

sciforge Strategy

Marss is intentionally downstream from sciforge. Mars-specific orchestration belongs here; reusable scientific primitives should move upstream into sciforge when appropriate.

Related Project Files

• CHANGELOG.md: current implemented state
• ComingSoon.md: detailed roadmap and blocked items
• LICENSE: MIT license text