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Thus, a crewed cabin air monitor is designed allowing the detection and monitoring of trace gas dynamics of a spacecraft atmosphere providing besides the continuous air monitoring activities, warning capability in case of malfunctions.

This paper is a status report on the development of ANITA (Analysing Interferometer for Ambient Air), an FTIR-based (Fourier Transform Infrared spectrometer) trace gas monitoring system. ANITA is scheduled for transport to the ISS (International Space Station) on the ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle) maiden flight ‘Jules Verne’, scheduled for launch April 2006. ANITA is calibrated to detect and quantify simultaneously 32 of the most important trace gases in the ISS atmosphere. ANITA operates fully automatic with one reading every 5 minutes. However, manual operation for non-local sampling is possible. To fulfil this measurement task a high-quality instrument has been developed and provided with sophisticated analysis software based on measurement simulations and advanced statistical regression techniques.

In a multiple-phase ESA project starting in 1990, the technology for trace gas monitoring in a crewed space cabin was developed. Based on optical principles - a Fourier-Transform-Infrared Spectrometer in combination with sophisticated analysis S/W - the instrument has the characteristics to identify and quantity quasi on-line over 30 most relevant trace gases in air. A system for testing the analysis technology in a shuttle flight is presently under design. The ANITA (Analyzing Interferometer for Ambient Air) development status and plans for the space flight beginning of 2003 will be reported in this paper. The description of the analysis S/W was already reported in an earlier ICES paper [1].

After 11 months of successful operation onboard the ISS US laboratory Destiny, the air quality monitors ANITA (Analyzing Interferometer for Ambient Air) was brought back to Earth on STS126 (ULF2). ANITA is a technology demonstrator flight experiment for continuous air quality monitoring inside the crewed cabin of the ISS with low detection limits and high time resolution. For the first time, the dynamics of the detected trace gas concentrations could be directly resolved by ANITA and correlated to gas events in the cabin. The system is the result of a long term ESA technology development programme initiated more than seventeen years ago. The ANITA mission was a cooperative project between ESA and NASA. ESA's responsibilities were the provision of the H/W, the data acquisition and the data evaluation. NASA was responsible for the launch, accommodation and operation onboard ISS, data download and the transportation of ANITA back to the Earth.

This paper presents the status of ongoing BB studies for an optimized trace gas monitoring (TGM) system configured to simultaneously and quasi-online detect (quantitatively and qualitatively) 30 different trace gases in manned spacecraft. The system principle relies on the detection of molecule absorption lines in the infrared being converted into a measured spectrum by a Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectrometer.

The system represents a versatile air quality monitor, allowing for the first time the detection and monitoring of trace gas dynamics, with high time resolution, in a spacecraft atmosphere. ANITA operated on the ISS from September 2007 to August 2008. This paper summarises the results of ANITA's air analyses and compares results to other measurements acquired on ISS during the operational period.

Many miniature SGS units with high sensitivity may be distributed in the spacecraft to give very fast detection of any rapid local change in the cabin air quality (‘gas event’).

This crewed cabin air quality monitor allows the detection and monitoring of trace gas dynamics of a spacecraft atmosphere, providing continuous air monitoring as well as crew warning capability in case of malfunctions.

This air quality monitor allows therefore the detection and monitoring of trace gas dynamics of the spacecraft atmosphere, providing continuous air monitoring as well as crew warning capability in case of malfunctions.