Search Results

Fine water mist has become a commercial technology for fire suppression in multiple applications. With funding from NASA, ADA Technologies, Inc. (ADA) is developing a handheld fine water mist fire extinguisher for use on manned spacecraft and in future planetary habitats. This design employs only water and nitrogen as suppression agents to allow local refill and reuse. The prototype design incorporates features to generate a uniform fine water mist regardless of the direction of the gravitational vector or lack of gravity altogether. The system has been proven to extinguish open fires and hidden fire scenarios in tests conducted at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM). This design can be deployed as a portable extinguisher or as an automated system for local fire protection in instrument racks or storage spaces. Continued development will result in prototype hardware suitable for use on future manned spacecraft.

ADA Technologies, Inc. has designed and built a microgravity-tolerant portable fire extinguisher prototype for use in manned spacecraft and planetary habitats. This device employs Fine Water Mist (FWM) as the fire extinguishing agent, and is refillable from standard stores on long-duration missions. The design uses a single storage tank for minimal mass and volume. The prototype employs a dual-fluid atomizer concept where the pressurant gas (nitrogen) also enhances the water atomization process to generate a droplet size distribution in the optimum diameter range of 10 to 50 micrometers. The expanding discharge gas plume carries the mist to the immediate vicinity of the fire where its extensive surface area promotes high heat transfer rates. A series of 80 fire suppression tests was recently completed to evaluate design options for the hardware and validate performance on three representative fire scenarios.

A revolutionary interplanetary rapid transit concept for transporting scientists and explorers between Earth and Mars is presented by Global Aerospace Corporation under funding from the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) with support from the Colorado School of Mines, and Science Applications International Corporation. We describe an architecture that uses highly autonomous spaceships, dubbed Astrotels; small Taxis for trips between Astrotels and planetary Spaceports; Shuttles that transport crews to and from orbital space stations and planetary surfaces; and low-thrust cargo freighters. In addition we discuss the production of rocket fuels using extraterrestrial materials; aerocapture to slow Taxis at the planets; and finally describe a number of trade studies and their life-cycle cost results.

A three phase catalytic mathematical model was developed for analysis and optimization of the volatile reactor assembly (VRA) used on International Space Station (ISS) Water Processor. The Langmuir-Hinshelwood Hougen-Watson (L-H) expression was used to describe the surface reaction rate. Small column experiments were used to determine the L-H rate parameters. The test components used in the experiments were acetic acid, acetone, ethanol, 1-propanol, 2-propanol and propionic acid. These compounds are the most prevalent ones found in the influent to the VRA reactor. The VRA model was able to predict performance of small column data and experimental data from the VRA flight experiment.