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Direct osmotic concentration (DOC) is an integrated membrane treatment process designed for the reclamation of spacecraft wastewater. The system includes forward osmosis (FO), membrane evaporation, reverse osmosis (RO) and an aqueous phase catalytic oxidation (APCO) post-treatment unit. This document describes progress in the third year of a four year project to advance hardware maturity of this technology to a level appropriate for human rated testing. The current status of construction and testing of the final deliverable is covered and preliminary calculations of equivalent system mass are funished.

In this paper, an aggregate system level modeling and analysis framework is proposed to facilitate the integration and design of advanced life support systems (ALSS). As in process design, the goal is to choose values for the degrees of freedom that achieve the best overall ALSS behavior without violating any system constraints. At the most fundamental level, this effort will identify the constraints and degrees of freedom associated with each subsystem and provide estimates of the system behavior and interactions involved in ALSS. This work is intended to be a starting point for developing insights into ALSS from a systems engineering point of view. At this level, simple aggregate static input/output mapping subsystem models from existing data and the NASA ALS BVAD document are used to debug the model and demonstrate feasibility.

This paper describes research to analyze widespread fatigue damage in lap joints. The particular objective is to determine when large numbers of small cracks could degrade the joint strength to an unacceptable level. A deterministic model is described to compute fatigue crack growth and residual strength of riveted panels that contain multiple cracks. Fatigue crack growth tests conducted to evaluate the predictive model are summarized, and indicate good agreement between experimental and numerical results. Monte Carlo simulations are then performed to determine the influence of statistical variability on various analysis parameters.

There has always been, from the very first UAV, a need for providing cost-effective methods of deploying unmanned aircraft systems at high altitudes. Missions for UAVs at high altitudes are used to conduct atmospheric research, perform global mapping missions, collect remote sensing data, and establish long range communications networks. The team of Gevers Aircraft, Technology Management Group, and Purdue University have designed an innovative balloon launched UAV for these near space applications. A UAV (Payload Return Vehicle) with a nested morphing wing was designed in order to meet the challenges of high altitude flight, and long range and endurance without the need for descent rate control with rockets or a feathering mode.

In long-duration, closed human habitats in space that include crop growth, one challenge that is faced while designing a candidate waste processor is the composition of solid-waste loads, which include human waste, packaging and food-processing materials, crop spoilage, and plant residues. In this work, a new modeling tool is developed to characterize crop residues and food wastes based on diet in order to support the design of solid-waste technologies for closed systems. The model predicts amounts of crop residues and food wastes due to food processing, crop harvests, and edible spoilage. To support the design of solid-waste technologies, the generation of crop residues and food wastes was characterized for a 600-day mission to Mars using integrated menu, crop, and waste models. The three sources of plant residues and food waste are identified to be food processors, crop harvests, and edible spoilage.

The negative consequences of unsafe behaviors on the job heavily contribute to the rising costs of doing business in terms of both organization dollars and diminished human quality of life. Developing a safety culture provides a positive proactive approach toward creating a working environment where safety is a top priority. An integral part of accomplishing this task is directly related to training individuals on how the interactions that occur among organizational members and the messages their behaviors send influence others' behaviors. This can be best addressed through communication skill development initiatives including mutual responsibility, trust, avoiding punitive strategies and facilitating assertiveness.

As part of the NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training for Advanced Life Support (NSCORT-ALS) at Purdue University, a complementary disinfection process, which uses ultraviolet (UV) radiation as the primary disinfectant and iodine as the secondary, residual disinfectant, is being developed. UV radiation was selected as the primary disinfectant because it is effective at inactivating a broad spectrum of microorganisms and has minimal potential for the formation of disinfection byproducts. Iodine, which is effective at inactivating many microorganisms and is less likely to react and form disinfection byproducts than other halogens, was selected as the residual disinfectant because it has the potential for dual use as an on-line UV monitor, as well as a disinfectant.

Recognizing that technicians and managers need additional skills in order to compete for and successfully fill management positions, a major air carrier requested that Purdue University perform a study with employees in order to identify specific skills that are required to perform successfully in leadership positions. The study identified three core competencies (leadership, communication, and management processes) needed to be a successful leader in a major air carrier environment and outlined several related knowledge and skills within each area. Currently, many individuals in front line and mid-level management are lacking in several of these knowledge bases and skill sets. Consequently, the value of addressing current deficiencies through educational and experiential learning opportunities was proposed.

The Indiana Space Grant Consortium is one of 52 members of the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program (“Space Grant”), which was initiated by NASA in 1988. Space Grant is designed to be a source of NASA-related information, awards, and programs to enhance education, outreach, and workforce development for the United States. Based on the land grant model of public university education, Space Grant seeks to spread the vision of NASA to increase science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) awareness; NASA-related education; workforce development; outreach and research activities. This paper describes the evolution of these activities in Indiana.

The NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training in Advanced Life Support (ALS/NSCORT) Education and Outreach Program is designed to engage audiences through concepts and technologies highlighted in the NSCORT research program. The outreach program is composed of three thrust areas. These areas are technical outreach (graduate education, technology transfer, presentations to industry, etc.), educational outreach (professional development, undergraduate, K-12), and public outreach (museums, state fairs, etc.) Program design of the technical and educational outreach began in January 2003. This paper reports anecdotal data on one ALS/NSCORT outreach program and gives a brief description of the other programs in their pilot stages. Technical and educational outreach programs developed to date include: 1) Summer Fellowship Research Program, 2) Distance Learning Course, 3) Key Learning Community Collaborative Project and 4) Mission to Mars.

Wheat is a candidate crop for the Advanced Life Support (ALS) system, and cereal grains and their products will be included on long-term space missions beyond low earth orbit. While the exact supply scenario has yet to be determined, some type of post-processing of these grains must occur if they are shipped as bulk ingredients or grown on site for use in foods. Understanding the requirements for processing grains in space is essential for incorporating the process into the ALS food system. The ESM metric developed by NASA describes and compares individual system impact on a closed system in terms of a single parameter, mass. The objective of this study was to compare the impact of grain mill type on the ESM of producing yeast and flat breads. Hard red spring wheat berries were ground using a Brabender Quadrumat Jr. or the Kitchen-Aid grain mill attachment (both are proposed post-harvest technologies for the ALS system) to produce white and whole wheat flour, respectively.

In this research, excitation strategies for a salient-pole wound rotor synchronous machine are explored using a magnetic equivalent circuit model that includes core loss. It is shown that the excitation obtained is considerably different than would be obtained using traditional qd-based models. However, through evaluation of the resulting ‘optimal’ excitation, a relatively straightforward field-oriented type control is developed that is consistent with a desire for efficiency yet control simplicity. Validation is achieved through hardware experiment. The usefulness/applicability of the simplified control to variable speed applications is then considered.

Throughout the industry, organizations struggle with the task of implementing effective human factors programs aimed at reducing maintenance errors. Almost universally, many barriers have frustrated these efforts. In 1998 and 1999, the National Transportation Safety Board sponsored two workshops designed at identifying barriers to the implementation of human factors programs and to explore what was working and what was not working among the many industry efforts. This paper explores the findings of these workshops. In addition, it will report findings of Purdue University studies that reveal a rapid deterioration of even the most successful human factors programs. The research findings disclose several “disconnects” within most organizations which rapidly negate the positive effects of successful human factors and error management training and nullify many proactive human factors programs.

This paper explores the need for human factors and error management within the context of the general and corporate aviation environments. It discusses strategies currently employed in other segments of the aviation industry and how they might be utilized in the corporate and general aviation arenas. It also relates research findings and program successes experienced within the airline industry and makes recommendations as to how a consortial effort by industry organizations might be utilized to employ these strategies in corporate and general aviation operations.

The Lightweight Contingency Water Recovery System (LWC-WRS) harvests water from various sources in or around the Orion spacecraft in order to provide contingency water at a substantial mass savings when compared to stored emergency water supplies. The system uses activated carbon treatment (for urine) followed by forward osmosis (FO). The LWC-WRS recovers water from a variety of contaminated sources by directly processing it into a fortified (electrolyte and caloric) drink. Primary target water sources are urine, seawater, and other on board vehicle waters (often referred to as technical waters). The product drink provides hydration, electrolytes, and caloric requirements for crew consumption. The system hardware consists of a urine collection device containing an activated carbon matrix (Stage 1) and an FO membrane treatment element (or bag) which contains an internally mounted cellulose triacetate membrane (Stage 2).

The application of biological treatment to solid waste is very promising to facilitate recycling of water, carbon, and nutrients and to reduce the resupply needs of long-term crewed space missions. Degradation of biodegradable solid wastes generated during such a mission is under investigation as part of the NASA Center of Research and Training (NSCORT) at Purdue University. Processing in the solids thermophilic aerobic reactor (STAR) involves the use of high temperature micro-aerobic slurry conditions to degrade solid wastes, enabling the recycling of water, carbon, and nutrients for further downstream uses. Related research presently underway includes technical development and optimization of STAR operations as well as a complementary evaluation of post-STAR processing for gas-stream purification, water recovery by condensate purification, and residuals utilization for both mushroom growth media and nutritional support for fish growth.

This paper introduces an integration-level analysis tool to provide feedback for high-level trade spaces. The Purdue University Lunar C3I Model integrates approximations of several domain-specific models to simulate for many years the effect of network and asset parameters. This paper discusses the communication, anomaly response, and autonomy simulation models in depth. Results of these models provide specific examples of integration-level figures of merit that can be useful for comparing different campaign implementations. These figures of merit are contrasted with related domain-specific figures of merit in order to demonstrate the need for higher-level system integration decisions. A final example of integration-level results and interpretation discusses the autonomy level of the Altair lunar lander.

The ALS/NSCORT Education and Outreach provides an avenue to engage and educate higher education students and K-12 educators/students in the center's investigations of the synergistic concepts and principles required for regenerative life-support in extended-duration space exploration. The following K-12 Education programs will be addressed: 1) Key Learning Community Project provides exposure, mentoring and research opportunities for 9-12th grade students at Key Learning Community This program was expanded in 2004 to include an “Explore Mars” 3-day camp experience for 150 Key students. The overall goal of the collaborative project is to motivate students to pursue careers in science, technology, and engineering; 2) Mission to Mars Program introduces 5th-8th grade students to the complex issues involved with living on Mars, stressing the interdisciplinary fundamentals of science, technology and engineering that underlie Advanced Life Support research.

The On-line Project Information System (OPIS) is a LAMP-based (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) system being developed at NASA Ames Research Center to improve Agency information transfer and data availability, largely for improvement of system analysis and engineering. The tool will enable users to investigate NASA technology development efforts, connect with experts, and access technology development data. OPIS is currently being developed for NASA's Exploration Life Support (ELS) Project. Within OPIS, NASA ELS Managers assign projects to Principal Investigators (PI), track responsible individuals and institutions, and designate reporting assignments. Each PI populates a “Project Page” with a project overview, team member information, files, citations, and images. PI's may also delegate on-line report viewing and editing privileges to specific team members. Users can browse or search for project and member information.

Direct osmotic concentration (DOC) has been identified as a potential wastewater treatment process for potable reuse in advanced life support systems (ALSS). As a result, further development of the DOC process is being supported by a NASA Rapid Technology Development Team (RTDT) program. DOC is an integrated membrane system combining three unique membrane separation processes including forward osmosis (FO), membrane distillation (MD), and reverse osmosis (RO) that is designed to treat separate wastewater streams comprising hygiene wastewater, humidity condensate, and urine. An aqueous phase catalytic oxidation (APCO) process is incorporated as post treatment for the product water. In an ongoing effort to improve the DOC process and make it fully autonomous, further development of the three membrane technologies is being pursued.