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The Department of Defense has made progress in modernizing its procurement of weapon systems. Modernization has identified a need to address Federal and military standards and specifications for parts, materials, and processes that represent many de facto national standards. The aerospace industry is proposing a transition to commercial specifications that meet the needs of Acquisition Reform. This paper reviews the history and benefits of modernization and describes the transition process.

A liquid/gas separator called the Mostly Liquid Separator (MLS) has been devised to provide liquid/gas separation with soapy fluids in a microgravity environment, and is an integral component of the International Space Station Water Processor. Now in its third generation of development, this paper describes the evolution of the MLS design, and presents a discussion of the development test data and results.

The purpose of the Permeable Membrane Experiment is to gather flight data on three areas of membrane performance that are influenced by the presence of gravity. These areas are: (1) liquid/gas phase separation, (2) gas bubble interference with diffusion through porous membranes and (3) wetting characteristics of hydrophilic membrane surfaces. These data are important in understanding the behavior of membrane/liquid/gas interfaces where surface tension forces predominate. The data will be compared with 1-g data already obtained and with predicted microgravity behavior. The data will be used to develop designs for phase separation and plant nutrient delivery systems and will be available to the life support community for use in developing technologies which employ membranes. A conceptual design has been developed to conduct three membrane experiments, in sequence, aboard a single Complex Autonomous Payload (CAP) carrier to be carried in the Shuttle Orbiter payload bay.