Design Status of the Closed-Loop Air Revitalization System ARES for Accommodation on the ISS 2007-01-3252

During the last years extensive work has been done to design and develop the Closed-Loop Air Revitalization System ARES. The potential of ARES e.g. as part of the ISS ECLSS is to significantly reduce the water upload demand and to increase the safety of the crew by reducing dependence on re-supply flights. The design is adapted to the interfaces of the new base lined Russian MLM module as possible location for a future installation of ARES. Due to the lack of orbital support equipment and interfaces to a waste water bus, to a feed water supply line and due to the availability of only one single vent line it was necessary to make the ARES process water loop as independent as possible from the host vehicle. Another optimization effort was to match the CO₂ desorption profile with the available hydrogen flow to achieve a sufficient water recovery performance, while meeting all related safety requirements, minimizing complexity and improving reliability.

This paper summarizes the work performed for the design, development and test of the closed-loop Air REvitalisation System (ARES) within the Phase B2.

In the preceding Phase B1, an Elegant Breadboard (EB) had been designed, manufactured and tested. For two out of three assemblies, the Carbon Dioxide Concentration Assembly (CCA) and the Carbon Dioxide Reduction Assembly (CRA), the major components and assembly design were of Engineering Model standard (form, fit and function equivalent to a Flight Model), for the Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) a lower maturity of Breadboard level was achieved.

With this integrated ARES system the capability to operate in a fully integrated status with the required performance was demonstrated.

Resulting from the shortcomings of the previous Phase B1, in this Phase B2 the work concentrated on:

• lifting the Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) to the same Elegant Breadboard (EB) / Engineering Model (EM) standard as the other two assemblies
• investigating and improving special assembly performance parameters with the goal to improve the overall system performance
• demonstrate a significantly longer and more autonomous operation of the ARES system
• definition of a re-configured CCA to improve the ARES System hydrogen conversion efficiency to a further extent.

The paper presents the achieved development status and results of the tests of last year.