Overall simulator for Life Support Strategy

Designing such a complex system is not straightforward. It involves a lot of subsystems that have to be integrated. In order simplify this task, and before envisaging any further design activities, computer/optimisation tools must be implemented to set out an optimised Life Support Strategy that would meet particular requirements.

To achieve this, it was proposed to define a new procedure to be used by ESA paving the way to assessment of possible Life Support System candidates. One has to understand that this is an evaluation tool that will allow the down-selection of the best Life Support System with respect to multiple criteria.

As a backup task, this tool will also lead to optimisation of existing Life Support System projects such as the European MELISSA Project that are far too complex to be easily designed through conventional methods. Advantages and drawbacks of the current International Space Station LSS optimisation tool are addressed to assess its suitability for long-duration missions. Finally, energy management and risk evaluation of such a system are assessed.

This activity intends to make LSS design easier and more time efficient. This means that a follow-up activity must aim at performing this down-selection as new designs are proposed for evaluation. Thus, this computational tool has to be flexible enough to cope with updates arising from technical innovation.

Executive Summary

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