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The crews of Expeditions 12 and 13 aboard the International Space Station (ISS) continued to rely on potable water from two different sources, regenerated humidity condensate and Russian ground-supplied water. The Space Shuttle launched twice during the 12-months spanning both expeditions and docked with the ISS for delivery of hardware and supplies. However, no Shuttle potable water was transferred to the station during either of these missions. The chemical quality of the ISS onboard potable water supplies was verified by performing ground analyses of archival water samples at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) Water and Food Analytical Laboratory (WAFAL). Since no Shuttle flights launched during Expedition 12 and there was restricted return volume on the Russian Soyuz vehicle, only one chemical archive potable water sample was collected with U.S. hardware and returned during Expedition 12. This sample was collected in March 2006 and returned on Soyuz 11.

Microbial proliferation in the STS potable water system is prevented by maintaining a 2-5 ppm iodine residual. The iodine is added to fuel cell water by an iodinated ion exchange resin in the Microbial Check Valve (MCV). Crew comments indicated excessive iodine in the potable water. To better define the problem, a method of in-flight iodine analysis was developed. Inflight analysis during STS-30 and STS-28 indicated iodine residuals were generally in the 9-13 ppm range. It was determined that the high iodine residual was caused by MCV influent temperatures in excess of 120 °F. This is well above the MCV operating range of 65-90 °F. The solution to this problem was to develop a resin suitable for the higher temperatures. Since 8 months were required to formulate a MCV resin suitable for the higher temperatures, a temporary solution was necessary. Two additional MCV's were installed on the chilled and ambient water lines leading into the galley to remove the excess iodine.

The primary source of potable water planned for the International Space Station will be generated from the reclamation of humidity condensate, urine, and hygiene waters. It is vital to crew health and performance that this reclaimed water be safe for human consumption, and that health risks associated with recycled water consumption be identified and quantified. Only recently has data been available on the chemical constituents in reclaimed waters generated in microgravity. Results for samples collected during Mir-21 reveal that both the reclaimed water and stored water are of potable quality, although the samples did not meet U.S. standards for total organic carbon (TOC), total phenols, and turbidity.

To satisfy a requirement to supply water to Mir station, a process for treating iodinated water on the Shuttle was developed and implemented. The treatment system consists of packed columns for removing iodine and a syringe-based injection system for adding ionic silver, the biocide used in Mir water. Technical and potable grade water is produced and transferred in batches using collapsible 44-liter contingency water containers (CWCs). Silver is added to the water via injection of a solution from preloaded syringes. Minerals are also added to water destined for drinking. During the previous four Shuttle-Mir docking missions a total of 2781 liters (735 gallons) of water produced by the Shuttle fuel cells was processed using this method and transferred to Mir. To verify the quality of the processed water, samples were collected during flight and returned for chemical analysis.

Archival sampling of potable water and condensate for ground laboratory analysis has been an important part of the Shuttle-Mir program because of coolant leaks and other events on Mir that have affected water quality. We report here the development of and preliminary results from a novel device for single phase humidity condensate collection at system pressures. The sampler consists of a commercial-off-the-shelf Teflon® bladder and a custom reinforced Nomex® restraint that is sized properly to absorb the stress of applied pressures. A plastic Luer-Lock disconnect, with poppet actuated by a mating Luer-Lock fitting, prevents the contents from being spilled during transport. In principle, a sampler of any volume can be designed. The empty mass of the reusable one-liter sampler is only 63 grams. Several designs were pressure tested and found to withstand more than 3 atmospheres well in excess of typical spacecraft water or wastewater system pressures.

The Crew Health Care System (CHeCS) is responsible for providing environmental monitoring to protect crew health, including in-flight chemical water quality analysis. To meet this objective, Total Organic Carbon Analyzer (TOCA) Serial Number (SN) 1002 was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in April of 2001 as part of the CHeCS hardware. Since that time it has been used to evaluate the quality of the potable water supplies consisting of reprocessed atmospheric condensate water, Shuttle-transferred water, and ground-supplied water. Potable water is available for crew use from the Service Module System for Regeneration of Water from Condensate (SRV-K) galley hot and warm ports and the Stored Potable Water System (SVO-ZV) port. Potable water samples are periodically collected from each of these ports for in-flight analysis with the TOCA.

The early International Space Station (ISS) drinking water supply primarily consists of water recovered from humidity condensate and water transferred from Shuttle. The water is dispensed both from the stored water dispensing system (SVO-ZV) and the galley, which is an integral part of the condensate recovery system. The galley provides both hot and tepid water. An assessment of the quality of each potable water source is underway and consists of periodic collection of samples into Teflon® bags for return to Earth via Shuttle. Water sampling hardware and procedures developed and used during the Shuttle-Mir program are employed on ISS without significant changes. This report provides results from detailed chemical analyses of recovered potable water and supplied (stored) water samples returned from ISS Expeditions 1 through 3. These results have been used to monitor the potability of the product and stored drinking water by comparing the results against water quality standards.

An important milestone in the ongoing effort by NASA to develop and refine closed-loop water recycling systems for human space flight was reached during the summer of 1996 with the successful completion of Phase II of the Lunar Mars Life Support Testing Program at Johnson Space Center. Part of Phase II involved testing a water-recycling system in a closed test chamber continuously occupied by four human subjects for thirty days. The Phase II crew began the test with a supply of water that had been processed and certified for human use. As the test progressed, humidity condensate, urine, and wastewater from personal hygiene and housekeeping activities were reclaimed and reused several times. Samples were collected from various points in the reclamation process during the thirty day test. The data verified the water-processing hardware can reliably remove wastewater contaminants and produce reclaimed water that meets NASA standards for hygiene- and potable-quality water.

During the twelve month period comprising Expeditions 10 and 11, the chemical quality of the potable water onboard the International Space Station (ISS) was verified through the return and ground analysis of water samples. The two-man Expedition 10 crew relied solely on Russian-provided ground water and reclaimed cabin humidity condensate as their sources of potable water. Collection of archival water samples with U.S. hardware has remained extremely restricted since the Columbia tragedy because of very limited return volume on Russian Soyuz vehicles. As a result only two such samples were collected during Expedition 10 and returned on Soyuz 9. The average return sample volume was only 250 milliliters, which limited the breadth of chemical analysis that could be performed. Despite the Space Shuttle vehicle returning to flight in July 2005, only two potable water samples were collected with U.S. hardware during Expedition 11 and returned on Shuttle flight STS-114 (LF1).

Potable water for the Shuttle orbiter is generated as a by-product of electricity production by the fuel cells. Water from the fuel cells flows through a Microbial Check Valve (MCV), which releases biocidal iodine into the water before it enters one of four storage tanks. Potable water is dispensed on-orbit at the rehydration unit of the galley. Due to crew health concerns, iodine removal hardware is installed in the chilled water inlet line to the galley to remove the iodine from the potable water before it is consumed by the crew. The Shuttle water system is sampled to ensure water quality is maintained during all operational phases from the disinfection of the ground servicing equipment through the completion of each mission. This paper describes and summarizes the Shuttle water quality requirements, the servicing of the Shuttle water system, the collection and analysis of Shuttle water samples, and the results of the analyses.

The Microbial Check Valve (MCV) is a reloadable flow-through canister containing iodinated ion exchange resin, which is used aboard the Shuttle Orbiter as a disinfectant to maintain water potability. The MCV exhibits a significant contact kill and imparts a biocidal residual I2 concentration to the effluent. MCVs in current use have nominal 30 day lives. MCVs baselined for Space Station Freedom will have 90 day lives, and will require replacement 120 times over 30 years. Means to extend MCV life are desirable to minimize resupply penalties. New technology has been developed for fully autonomous in situ regeneration of an expended MCV canister. The Regenerative Microbial Check Valve (RMCV) consists of an MCV, a packed bed of crystalline I2, a flow diverter valve, an in-line iodine monitor and a microcontroller. During regeneration, flow is directed first through the packed I2 bed and then into the MCV where the resin is replenished.

When construction of Space Station Freedom reaches the Permanent Manned Capability stage, plans call for the Water Recovery and Management Subsystem to treat distilled urine, spent hygiene water, and humidity condensate in order to reclaim water of potable quality. The reclamation technologies currently baselined to process these wastewaters include adsorption, ion exchange, catalytic oxidation, and disinfection. To ensure that baselined technologies will be able to effectively remove those compounds that present health risks to the crew, the National Research Council has recommended that additional information be gathered on specific contaminants in wastewaters representative of those to be encountered on Space Station. This paper reports the efforts by the Water and Food Analytical Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center to enlarge the database of potential contaminants in humidity condensate.

The objective of this study was to investigate combining GC/MS and CE methods to allow sub-mg/L levels of organic acids to be determined in various water samples. This study also served as a basis for evaluating these instruments for in-flight spacecraft water-quality monitoring and to help determine the modifications needed to convert terrestrial hardware for use in microgravity environments. This paper reports on current GC/MS and CE method development and data generated from some recent spacecraft-related water samples. Plans for further method development are also discussed.

With the Shuttle fleet grounded, limited capability exists to resupply in-flight water quality monitoring hardware onboard the International Space Station (ISS). As such, verification of the chemical quality of the potable water supplies on ISS has depended entirely upon the collection, return, and ground-analysis of archival water samples. Despite the loss of Shuttle-transferred water as a water source, the two-man crews during Expedition 8 and Expedition 9 maintained station operations for nearly a year relying solely on the two remaining sources of potable water; reclaimed humidity condensate and Russian-launched ground water. Archival potable water samples were only collected every 3 to 4 months from the systems that regenerate water from condensate (SRV-K) and distribute stored potable water (SVO-ZV).

Increasing levels of automation have driven changes in the modern test site architecture. While newer test sites are already highly integrated and can easily coordinate and time-align data from multiple sources, older designs have much lower levels of inter-process communication. To address test automation needs across both new and legacy test platforms, Ford has now developed a deterministic, data-driven communications infrastructure. Multiple computers of different design are made to function as a single, multi-processing unit. Immediate application of this technology includes automated testing and powertrain calibration. This paper reviews the design requirements and hardware/software implementation of the multi-processing environment.

Iodine is the disinfectant used in U.S. spacecraft potable water systems. Recent long-term testing on human subjects has raised concerns about excessive iodine consumption. Efforts to reduce iodine consumption by Shuttle crews were initiated on STS-87, using hardware originally designed to deiodinate Shuttle water prior to transfer to the Mir Space Station. This hardware has several negative aspects when used for Shuttle galley operations, and efforts to develop a practical alternative were initiated under a compressed development schedule. The alternative Low Iodine Residual System (LIRS) was flown as a Detailed Test Objective on STS-95. On-orbit, the LIRS imparted an adverse taste to the water due to the presence of trialkylamines that had not been detected during development and certification testing. A post-flight investigation revealed that the trialkylamines were released during gamma sterilization of the LIRS resin materials.

The Johnson Space Center Water and Food Analytical Laboratory (WAFAL) performed detailed ground-based analyses of archival water samples for verification of the chemical quality of the International Space Station (ISS) potable water supplies for Expeditions 14 and 15. During the 12-month duration of both expeditions, the Space Shuttle docked with the ISS on four occasions to continue construction and deliver additional crew and supplies; however, no Shuttle potable water was transferred to the station during Expedition 14. Russian ground-supplied potable water and potable water from regeneration of humidity condensate were both available onboard the ISS for consumption by the Expeditions 14 and 15 crews. A total of 16 chemical archival water samples were collected with U.S. hardware during Expeditions 14 and 15 and returned on Shuttle flights STS-116 (12A.1), STS-117 (13A), STS-118 (13A.1), and STS-120 (10A) in December 2006, and June, August, and November of 2007, respectively.