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The Vapor Phase Catalytic Ammonia Removal (VPCAR) technology has been previously discussed as a viable option for the Exploration Water Recovery System. This technology integrates a phase change process with catalytic oxidation in the vapor phase to produce potable water from exploration mission wastewaters. A developmental prototype VPCAR was designed, built and tested under funding provided by a National Research Announcement (NRA) project. The core technology, a Wiped Film Rotating Device (WFRD) was provided by Water Reuse Technologies under the NRA, whereas Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems International performed the hardware integration and acceptance test of the system. Personnel at the Ames Research Center performed initial systems test of the VPCAR using ersatz solutions. To assess the viability of this hardware for Exploration Life Support (ELS) applications, the hardware has been modified and tested at the MSFC ECLS Test Facility.

An EVA simulation with a medical contingency scenario was conducted in 2006 with the NASA Haughton-Mars and EVA Physiology System and Performance Projects, to develop medical contingency management and evacuation techniques for planetary surface exploration. A rescue/evacuation system to allow two rescuer astronauts to evacuate one incapacitated astronaut was evaluated. The rescue system was utilized effectively to extract an injured astronaut up a slope of15-25° and into a surface mobility rover for transport to a simulated habitat for advanced medical care. Further research is recommended to evaluate the effects of reduced gravity and to develop synergies with other surface systems for carrying out the contingency procedures.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) removal technology development for portable life support systems (PLSS) has traditionally concentrated in the areas of solid and liquid chemical sorbents and semi-permeable membranes. Most of these systems are too heavy in gravity environments, require prohibitive amounts of consumables for operation on long term planetary missions, or are inoperable on the surface of Mars due to the presence of a CO2 atmosphere. This paper describes the effort performed to mature an innovative CO2 removal technology that meets NASA's planetary mission needs while adhering to the important guiding principles of simplicity, reliability, and operability. A breadboard cryogenic carbon dioxide scrubber for an ejector-based cryogenic PLSS was developed, designed, and tested. The scrubber freezes CO2 and other trace contaminants out of expired ventilation loop gas using cooling available from a liquid oxygen (LOX) based PLSS.

NASA's Digital Learning Network (DLN) reaches out to thousands of students each year through video conferencing and webcasting. As part of NASA's Strategic Plan to reach the next generation of space explorers, the DLN develops and delivers educational programs that reinforce principles in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The DLN has created a series of live education videoconferences connecting the Desert Research and Technology Studies (RATS) field test to students across the United States. The programs are also extended to students around the world via live webcasting. The primary focus of the events is the Vision for Space Exploration. During the programs, Desert RATS engineers and scientists inform and inspire students about the importance of exploration and share the importance of the field test as it correlates with plans to return to the Moon and explore Mars. This paper describes the events that took place in September 2006.

The paper provides a summary of current work accomplished under technical task agreement (TTA) by the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) regarding the Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) as well as future planning activities in support of the International Space Station(ISS).Current activities computer model development, component design and development, subsystem/integrated system testing, life testing, and government furnished equipment delivered to the ISS program. A long range plan for the MSFC ECLSS test facility is described whereby the current facility would be upgraded to support integrated station ECLSS operations. ECLSS technology development efforts proposed to be performed under the Advanced Engineering Technology Development (AETD) program are also discussed.

A test has been completed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) to evaluate the Water Recovery and Management (WRM) system and Waste Management (WM) urinal design for the United States On-Orbit Segment (USOS) of the International Space Station (ISS). Potable and urine reclamation processors were integrated with waste water generation equipment and successfully operated for a total of 128 days in recipient mode configuration to evaluate the accumulation of contaminants in the water system and to assess the performance of various modifications to the WRM and WM hardware. No accumulation of contaminants were detected in the product water over the course of the recipient mode test. An additional 18 days were conducted in donor mode to assess the ability of the system to removal viral contaminants, to monitor the breakthrough of organic contaminants through the multifiltration bed, and for resolving anomalies that occurred during the test.

A two year test program has been initiated to evaluate the effects of extended duration operation on a solid polymer electrolyte Oxygen Generator Assembly (OGA); in particular the cell stack and membrane phase separators. As part of this test program, the OGA was integrated into the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Water Recovery Test (WRT) Stage 10, a six month test, to use reclaimed water directly from the water processor product water storage tanks. This paper will document results encountered and evaluated thus far in the life testing program.

NASA's Constellation Program, which includes the mission objectives of establishing a permanently-manned lunar Outpost, and the exploration of Mars, poses new and unique challenges for human life support systems that will require solutions beyond the Shuttle and International Space Station state of the art systems. In particular, the requirement to support crews for extended durations at the lunar outpost with limited resource resupply capability will require closed-loop regenerative life support systems with minimal expendables. Planetary environmental conditions such as lunar dust and extreme temperatures, as well as the capability to support frequent and extended-duration Extra-vehicular Activity's (EVA's) will be particularly challenging.

Exploration Life Support (ELS) is a technology development project under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Exploration Technology Development Program. The ELS Project's goal is to develop and mature a suite of Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) technologies for potential use on human spacecraft under development in support of U.S. Space Exploration Policy. Technology development is directed at three major vehicle projects within NASA's Constellation Program: the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), the Altair Lunar Lander and Lunar Surface Systems, including habitats and pressurized rovers. The ELS Project includes four technical elements: Atmosphere Revitalization Systems, Water Recovery Systems, Waste Management Systems and Habitation Engineering, and two cross cutting elements, Systems Integration, Modeling and Analysis, and Validation and Testing.

NASA's Constellation Program includes the Orion, Altair, and Lunar Surface Systems (LSS) project offices. The first two elements, Orion and Altair, are manned space vehicles while the third element is broader and includes several subelements including Rovers and a Lunar Habitat. The upcoming planned missions involving these systems and vehicles include several risks and design challenges. Due to the unique thermal environment, many of these risks and challenges are associated with the vehicles' thermal control system. NASA's Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) includes the Exploration Technology Development Program (ETDP). ETDP consists of several technology development projects. The project chartered with mitigating the aforementioned risks and design challenges is the Thermal Control System Development for Exploration Project.

With the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle planned to be completed in 2009, Exploration Life Support (ELS), a technology development project under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Exploration Technology Development Program, is focusing its efforts on needs for human lunar missions. The ELS Project's goal is to develop and mature a suite of Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) technologies for potential use on human spacecraft under development in support of U.S. Space Exploration Policy. ELS technology development is directed at three major vehicle projects within NASA's Constellation Program (CxP): the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), the Altair Lunar Lander and Lunar Surface Systems, including habitats and pressurized rovers.

Thermal control systems for space application plant growth chambers offer unique challenges. The ability to control temperature and humidity independently gives greater flexibility for optimizing plant growth. Desired temperature and relative humidity range vary widely from 15°C to 35°C and 65% to 85% respectively. On top of all of these variables, the thermal control system must also be conservative in power and mass. These requirements to develop and test a robust thermal control system for space applications led to the design and development of the Environmental System Test Stand (ESTS) at NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC). The ESTS was designed to be a size constrained, environmental control system test stand with the flexibility to allow for a variety of thermal and lighting technologies. To give greater understanding to the environmental control system, the development of the ESTS included both mathematical models and the physical test stand.

Biological water processors are currently being developed for application in microgravity environments. Work has been performed to develop a single-phase, gravity independent anoxic denitrification reactor for organic carbon removal [1]. As a follow on to this work it was necessary to develop a gravity independent nitrification reactor in order to provide sufficient nitrite and nitrate to the organic carbon oxidation reactor for the complete removal of organic carbon. One approach for providing the significant amounts of dissolved oxygen required for nitrification is to require the biological reactor design to process two-phase gas and liquid in micro-gravity. This paper addresses the design and test results overview for development of a tubular, two-phase, gravity independent nitrification biological water processor.

The purification of waste water is a critical element of any long-duration space mission. The Vapor Phase Catalytic Ammonia Removal (VPCAR) system offers the promise of a technology requiring low quantities of expendable material that is suitable for exploration missions. NASA has funded an effort to produce an engineering development unit specifically targeted for integration into the NASA Johnson Space Center's Integrated Human Exploration Mission Simulation Facility (INTEGRITY) formally known in part as the Bioregenerative Planetary Life Support Test Complex (Bio-Plex) and the Advanced Water Recovery System Development Facility. The system includes a Wiped-Film Rotating-Disk (WFRD) evaporator redesigned with micro-gravity operation enhancements, which evaporates wastewater and produces water vapor with only volatile components as contaminants. Volatile contaminants, including organics and ammonia, are oxidized in a catalytic reactor while they are in the vapor phase.

A key component of an Advanced Life Support (ALS) system is the solid waste handling system. One of the most important data sets for determining what solid waste handling technologies are needed is a solid waste model. A preliminary solid waste model based on a six-person crew was developed prior to the 2000 Solid Waste Processing and Resource Recovery (SWPRR) workshop. After the workshop, comments from the ALS community helped refine the model. Refinements included better estimates of both inedible plant biomass and packaging materials. Estimates for Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) waste, water processor brine solution, as well as the water contents for various solid wastes were included in the model refinement efforts. The wastes were re-categorized and the dry wastes were separated from wet wastes. This paper details the revised model as of the end of 2001. The packaging materials, as well as the biomass wastes, vary significantly between different proposed Mars missions.

The quantitative analysis of the food system for long-term space missions is a crucial factor for the comparison of different food plans and for the evaluation of the food system as part of the overall mission. Such analysis should include important factors such as nutrition, palatability, diet cycle length, and psychological issues related to food. This paper will give the details of a mathematical model that was developed during the first author's participation as a Summer Faculty Fellow at Johnson Space Center. The model includes nutrition, palatability, diet cycle length, and psychological issues as important components. The model is compatible with the Equivalent System Mass (ESM) metric previously developed as the Advance Life Support (ALS) Research and Technology Metric.

A three-year program to develop a Direct Drive Hall Effect Thruster (D2HET) system began 15 months ago as part of the NASA Advanced Cross-Enterprise Technology Development initiative. The system is expected to reduce significantly the power processing, complexity, weight, and cost over conventional low-voltage systems. The D2HET will employ solar arrays that operate at voltages greater than 300V, and will be an enabling technology for affordable planetary exploration. It will also be a stepping-stone in the production of the next generation of power systems for Earth orbiting satellites. This paper provides a general overview of the program and reports the first year's findings from both theoretical and experimental components of the program.

Research committed by the Langley Research Center through 1995 resulting in the HZETRN code provides the current basis for shield design methods according to NASA STD-3000 (2005). With this new prominence, the database, basic numerical procedures, and algorithms are being re-examined with new methods of verification and validation being implemented to capture a well defined algorithm for engineering design processes to be used in this early development phase of the Bush initiative. This process provides the methodology to transform the 1995 HZETRN research code into the 2005 HZETRN engineering code to be available for these early design processes. In this paper, we will review the basic derivations including new corrections to the codes to insure improved numerical stability and provide benchmarks for code verification.

A series of tests has been conducted at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) to evaluate the performance of the Space Station Freedom (SSF) water recovery system. Potable and urine reclamation processors were integrated with waste water generation equipment and successfully operated for a total of 144 days. This testing marked the first occasion in which the waste feed sources for previous potable and hygiene loops were combined into a single loop and processed to potable water quality. Reclaimed potable water from the combined waste waters routinely met the SSF water quality specifications. In the last stage of this testing, data was obtained that indicated that the Water Processor (WP) presterilizer may not be required to meet the potable water quality specification.

The projections of increased Extravehicular Activity (EVA) operations for the Space Station Freedom (SSF) resulted in the development of advanced space suit technologies to increase EVA efficiency. To eliminate the overhead of denitrogenation, candidate higher-operating pressure suit technologies were developed. The AX-5 all metallic, multi-bearing technologies were developed at the Ames Research Center, and the Mk. III fabric and metallic technologies were developed at the Johnson Space Center. Following initial technology development, extensive tests and analyses were performed to evaluate all aspects of candidate technology performance. The current Space Shuttle space suit technologies were used as a baseline for evaluating those of the AX-5 and Mk. III. Tests included manned evaluations in the Weightless Environment Training Facility and KC-135 zero-gravity aircraft.