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Water recovery from wastewater is essential for the success of long-term missions to the Moon and Mars and human crew operations during explorations of these planets. Honeywell International and the team consisting of Thermodistillation Co. ( Kyiv, Ukraine) and NASA JSC Crew and Thermal Systems Division are developing an efficient wastewater processing subsystem that is based on centrifugal vacuum distillation. This subsystem will be tested at the NASA JSC Advanced Water Recovery Systems Development Facility. The Wastewater Processing Cascade Distillation Subsystem (CDS) utilizes an innovative and proven multi-stage thermodynamic process to produce purified water efficiently, and its rotary centrifugal design provides gas/liquid phase separation and liquid transport (pumping) under microgravity conditions.

Vacuum rotary distillation is an attractive technology for water recovery from wastewater onboard a human crewed spacecraft that includes human urine and reverse osmosis brine. To reduce specific energy consumption while purifying water in the vacuum rotary distillation technology, multistage distillations, as well as thermoelectric heat pumps, are used. A theoretical approach to the calculation of the optimal number of distillation stages is given. Test results are given for a new five-stage cascaded distiller in a system with a thermoelectric heat pump. These results include the performance parameters of the system and the water quality of the product for the process of water recovery from solutions of NaCl and human urine.

Water recovery from wastewater is essential for the success of long term missions. Honeywell Aerospace and the team comprising Thermodistillation Co. (Kiev, Ukraine) and NASA JSC Crew and Thermal Systems Division are developing an advanced wastewater processing subsystem that is based on centrifugal vacuum distillation that will be tested at the NASA JSC water lab. The wastewater processing cascade distillation subsystem (CDS) utilizes a multi-stage thermodynamic process to efficiently produce purified water, and its rotary centrifugal design provides gas/liquid phase separation and liquid transport (pumping) under microgravity conditions. The objective of the program is to demonstrate potable water recovery from various wastewater streams that is suitable to meet the requirements of present (ISS) and future (Lunar-Mars) human space missions. This paper presents the subsystem design and the cascade distiller operational evaluation.

Water recovery is an essential capability for long-term space missions because potable water is a vital resource. Wastewater, especially human urine, contains mineral salts that must be removed if the recycled water is to become potable. This paper addresses secondary water processors using distillation. These processors are elements of a complete water recovery system and are used to recover water from urine and brines. Most of the previous work on distillation processors has been devoted to the processing of urine. The most successful urine processors use rotary vacuum distillation. Vacuum rotary distillation is the process of distillation at reduced pressure in a rotating apparatus. This provides for operation at reduced temperatures and operation in zero-gravity, both of which are desirable for space flight applications.