Phases management for Advanced Life Support System
For a lunar base or a mission to Mars, a reliable life support system including food and water supply, gas generation and waste management is needed. Whilst for a short-term mission a life support system may work as an open-loop circuit, which means that supplies are provided directly from Earth, for longer-term missions it is necessary to develop technologies which close the life support loop and which enable a greater and greater degree of self-sufficiency.
ESA has been developing life support systems and processes for 15 years, however these studies have mainly been focused on the ground demonstration of the concerned processes. Although these processes are now rather well characterised, the study of the associated interfaces has been limited.
Today, it is widely acknowledged that the management of these processes can induce generic problems. Indeed, these processes are found to be more efficient when split into four main sub-processes called compartments: waste compartment, nitrogen transformation compartment, photosynthetic compartment and the crew compartment. The main difficulty is the management of the inputs/outputs phases (liquid, solid, gas) between compartments.
Within this study, work will focus on the gas phase management and more specifically on the separation issues between compartments. Based on the selected technology, a concept will be proposed and a breadboard will be developed and evaluated. The main objectives are to study, develop, manufacture and test this gas breadboard for an Advanced Life Support System. First, work will consist of studying the gas loop concept and identifying critical points. Design of selected critical technologies will then be performed prior to critical hardware development in order to achieve the main objective which is the test itself, test performances and results evaluation.
This activity will be closely coordinated with the other life support activities in order to converge towards the design of a global and optimised regenerative Life Support System that may be implemented for further assessment of a long-term manned mission to a lunar base or to Mars.
| Start |
Expected or actual duration | Status | Prime contractor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan '03 | 45 months | Ongoing | Stork Aerospace |
Executive Summary