Search Results

ESA has been developing regenerative physicochemical air revitalisation technology for more than 20 years. The effort is now maturing into a flight demonstration experiment which is planned to be located in the Columbus module on ISS. The experiment shall be sized for a crew of three. It will comprise a CO2 concentration assembly, a Sabatier reactor and an electrolyser. The paper describes the adaptation of ARES to the available Columbus interfaces as well as ARES development status, performances, benefits to the ISS and operational agreements with ISS partners.

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.

EADS SPACE Transportation GmbH designed, built and tested a condensate buffer to be located between a Condensing Heat Exchanger (CHX) and a Condensate Water Separator Assembly (CWSA), as part of the ECLSS of the European Columbus Module. Under zero-g conditions, the separation of water from an air-water mixture is always difficult, especially if a passive device is to be used such as the low power consuming Columbus CWSA. The additional buffer volume reduces condensate water peaks reaching the CWSA to a level that excludes an overloading of the CWSA and a release of free water droplets into the air return to the cabin. In the CHX/CWSA system this may only be necessary under worst case operational conditions and with a failure of the qualified hydrophilic coating of the CHX. The buffer design principle was confirmed via prior analyses and on-ground testing. The performance of such a condensate buffer under micro-g conditions was verified during parabolic flights.

This paper describes a design proposal for adapting the OGEGU Food Production Unit (FPU) to the surface of Mars in order to produce up to 40% of the diet for a six-member crew by growing a pre-defined set of vegetable food species. The external structure, lighting system and plant support system are assessed using ESM analysis. The study shows that the mass of an FPU operating on the Mars surface, featuring an opaque inflatable structure plus all the required subsystems and equipment, is in the order of 14,000 kg. The required volume is around 150 m3 and the power consumption is around 140 kW. A reduction of c. 20 kW could be obtained by exploiting natural light using transparent materials. Finally, the paper concludes with the identification of some technological gaps that need to be investigated further for the purpose of establishing a feasible FPU on Mars.

For the last 10 years, ESA has initiated Life Support activities to prepare long-term manned missions. Although a large part of these activities were based on physico-chemical technologies, biological processes were considered as well. A few projects were initiated: air contaminants removal (e.g. BAF) up to the complete and complex approach of artificial ecosystems (e.g. MELISSA). In order to make a complete survey of the existing developments, to evaluate their advantages and weaknesses, to identify the needs of future projects, as well as to understand the interest of industry, an Advanced Life Support Workshop has been organised in April 1999 by ESA. This paper reviews the existing developments and presents the recommendations of the workshop. A specific part is devoted to the projects in collaboration with the ESA Life Sciences community and the results of the 1999 announcement of opportunity, which included Biological life Support.

The Columbus Orbital Facility is being developed as the European laboratory contribution to the United States' led International Space Station programme. The need to exchange thermal mathematical models frequently amongst the Space Station partners for thermal analyses in support of their individual programme milestone, integration and verification activities requires the development of a commonly agreed and effective approach to identify and validate mathematical models and environments. The approach needs to take into account the fact that the partners have different model and software tool requirements and the fact that the models need to be properly tailored to include all the relevant design features. It must also decouple both programmes from the unavoidable design changes they are still undergoing. This problem presents itself for both active and passive thermal interfaces.