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Results for “Environmental and Life Support Systems”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 217 records · Page 12
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1983

Environmental control and life support - Partially closed system will save big money

Although the NASA space station has not yet been completely defined, realistic estimates may be made of the environmental control and life support system requirements entailed by a crew of eight, a resupply interval of 90 days, an initial launch which includes expendables for the first resupply interval, 7.86 lb/day of water per person, etc. An appraisal of these requirements is presented which strongly suggests the utility of a partially closed life support system. Such a scheme would give the crew high quality water to drink, and recycle nonpotable water from hand washing, bathing, clothes and dish washing, and urinal flushing. The excess recovery process water is electrolyzed to provide metabolic and leakage oxygen. The crew would drink electrolysis water and atmospheric humidity control moisture-derived water.

Guy, W. W.↗
NASA NTRS1970

Selected EC/LS systems

Environmental control and life support systems design criteria for prolonged manned space flight mission

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2015

International Space Station (ISS) Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) System Overview of Events: 2010-2014

Nov 2, 2014 marked the completion of the 14th year of continuous human presence in space on board the International Space Station (ISS). After 42 expedition crews, over 115 assembly & utilization flights, over 180 combined Shuttle/Station, US & Russian Extravehicular Activities (EVAs), the post-Assembly-Complete ISS continues to fly and the engineering teams continue to learn from operating its systems, particularly the life support equipment. Problems with initial launch, assembly and activation of ISS elements have given way to more long term system operating trends. New issues have emerged, some with gestation periods measured in years. Major events and challenges for each U.S. Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) subsystem occurring during calendar years 2010 through 2014 are summarily discussed in this paper, along with look-aheads for what might be coming in the future for each U.S. ECLS subsystem.

Gentry, Gregory J.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Real-time space system control with expert systems

Many aspects of space system operations involve continuous control of real time processes. These processes include electrical power system monitoring, prelaunch and ongoing propulsion system health and maintenance, environmental and life support systems, space suit checkout, onboard manufacturing, and vehicle servicing including satellites, shuttles, orbital maneuvering vehicles, orbital transfer vehicles and remote teleoperators. Traditionally, monitoring of these critical real time processes has been done by trained human experts monitoring telemetry data. However, the long duration of future space missions and the high cost of crew time in space creates a powerful economic incentive for the development of highly autonomous knowledge based expert control procedures for these space systems.

Leinweber, David↗
NASA NTRS2023

Development of an Ultra High-Pressure Metals Promoted Combustion in Oxygen Test Apparatus

Materials flammability data is needed at pressures higher than ever tested before (greater than 10,000 psi). WSTF has designed and is currently building a metals flammability apparatus that can test metals up to 30,000 psi. Solid progress was achieved on the chamber in terms of system build up and fulfilling requirements to perform a NASA Test Readiness Review. Understanding metals flammability data at extreme pressure opens the doors for higher pressure and higher performance oxygen systems. Proposed systems include more reliable/higher performance propulsion systems and more reliable/lighter Environmental Control Life Support Systems (ECLSS). The test system needed for this testing required significant research and development to select a pressurization method and eliminate contact with potentially flammable materials back to the chamber. No additional promoted combustion data was collected in FY21. This International Research & Development (IRAD) proposal was critical to getting the system very close to operational status. This capability is critical to collect forward leaning material flammability data for future spacecraft and ground systems. Forward work has been identified and funding is being sought outside of the Center Innovation Fund (CIF) process for late FY23/FY24.

promoted combustion↗
NASA NTRS2017

Integrated Systems Health Management for Sustainable Habitats (Using Sustainability Base as a Testbed)

Habitation systems provide a safe place for astronauts to live and work in space and on planetary surfaces. They enable crews to live and work safely in deep space, and include integrated life support systems, radiation protection, fire safety, and systems to reduce logistics and the need for resupply missions. Innovative health management technologies are needed in order to increase the safety and mission-effectiveness for future space habitats on other planets, asteroids, or lunar surfaces. For example, off-nominal or failure conditions occurring in safety-critical life support systems may need to be addressed quickly by the habitat crew without extensive technical support from Earth due to communication delays. If the crew in the habitat must manage, plan and operate much of the mission themselves, operations support must be migrated from Earth to the habitat. Enabling monitoring, tracking, and management capabilities on-board the habitat and related EVA platforms for a small crew to use will require significant automation and decision support software.Traditional caution and warning systems are typically triggered by out-of-bounds sensor values, but can be enhanced by including machine learning and data mining techniques. These methods aim to reveal latent, unknown conditions while still retaining and improving the ability to provide highly accurate alerts for known issues. A few of these techniques will briefly described, along with performance targets for known faults and failures. Specific system health management capabilities required for habitat system elements (environmental control and life support systems, etc.) may include relevant subsystems such as water recycling systems, photovoltaic systems, electrical power systems, and environmental monitoring systems. Sustainability Base, the agency's flagship LEED-platinum certified green building acts as a living laboratory for testing advanced information and sustainable technologies that provides an opportunity to test novel machine learning and controls capabilities. In this talk, key features of Sustainability Base that make it relevant to deep space habitat technology and its use of these kinds of subsystems previously listed will be presented. The fact that all such systems require less power to support human occupancy can be used as a focal point to serve as a testbed for deep space habitats that will need to operate within finite energy budgets.

Systems Health Management↗
NASA NTRS2016

Life Support and Environmental Monitoring International System Maturation Team Considerations

Human exploration of the solar system is an ambitious goal. Future human missions to Mars or other planets will require the cooperation of many nations to be feasible. Exploration goals and concepts have been gathered by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) at a very high level, representing the overall goals and strategies of each participating space agency. The Global Exploration Roadmap published by ISECG states that international partnerships are part of what drives the mission scenarios. It states "Collaborations will be established at all levels (missions, capabilities, technologies), with various levels of interdependency among the partners." To make missions with interdependency successful, technologists and system experts need to share information early, before agencies have made concrete plans and binding agreements. This paper provides an overview of possible ways of integrating NASA, ESA, and JAXA work into a conceptual roadmap of life support and environmental monitoring capabilities for future exploration missions. Agencies may have immediate plans as well as long term goals or new ideas that are not part of official policy. But relationships between plans and capabilities may influence the strategies for the best ways to achieve partner goals. Without commitments and an organized program like the International Space Station, requirements for future missions are unclear. Experience from ISS has shown that standards and an early understanding of requirements are an important part of international partnerships. Attempting to integrate systems that were not designed together can create many problems. Several areas have been identified that could be important to discuss and understand early: units of measure, cabin CO2 levels, and the definition and description of fluids like high purity oxygen, potable water and residual biocide, and crew urine and urine pretreat. Each of the partners is exploring different kinds of technologies. Different specific parameters may important to define or explore possible ranges depending on the system concepts. Early coordination between technology developers can create new possibilities for collaboration, and provide input to determine what combined options may provide the best overall system architecture.

Anderson, Molly↗
NASA NTRS2016

Life Support and Environmental Monitoring International System Maturation Team Considerations.

Human exploration of the solar system is an ambitious goal. Future human missions to Mars or other planets will require the cooperation of many nations to be feasible. Exploration goals and concepts have been gathered by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG) at a very high level, representing the overall goals and strategies of each participating space agency. The Global Exploration Roadmap published by ISECG states that international partnerships are part of what drives the the mission scenarios. It states "Collaborations will be established at all levels (missions, capabilities, technologies), with various levels of interdependency among the partners." To make missions with interdependency successful, technologists and system experts need to share information early, before agencies have made concrete plans and binding agreements. This paper provides an overview of possible ways of integrating NASA, ESA, and JAXA work into a conceptual roadmap of life support and environmental monitoring capabilities for future exploration missions. Agencies may have immediate plans as well as long term goals or new ideas that are not part of official policy. But relationships between plans and capabilities may influence the strategies for the best ways to achieve partner goals. Without commitments and an organized program like the International Space Station, requirements for future missions are unclear. Experience from ISS has shown that standards and an early understanding of requirements are an important part of international partnerships. Attempting to integrate systems that were not designed together can create many problems. Several areas have been identified that could be important to discuss and understand early: units of measure, cabin CO2 levels, and the definition and description of fluids like high purity oxygen, potable water and residual biocide, and crew urine and urine pretreat. Each of the partners is exploring different kinds of technologies. Different specific parameters may important to define or explore possible ranges depending on the system concepts. Early coordination between technology developers can create new possibilities for collaboration, and provide input to determine what combined options may provide the best overall system architecture.

Anderson, Molly↗
NASA NTRS1992

Critical issues for space life sciences

Human exploration of space requires the interaction of three general systems: environmental health and life support systems, countermeasure systems, and medical care systems. These systems address atmospheric pressure, uncertainties associated with space radiation, the potential for exposure to toxic materials in the closed environment, spacecraft habitability, human physiology, and microgrvaity. While these interdependent systems serve the same overall goal -- the protection of the human crewmember from the hostile space environment -- each has specific essential roles. Individually and in combination the three systems should be responsive to a strategy of risk reduction, so that the scientific possibilities of exploration missions may be maximized.

Nicogossian, Arnauld E.↗
NASA NTRS2016

NASA Advanced Exploration Systems: Advancements in Life Support Systems

The NASA Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Life Support Systems (LSS) project strives to develop reliable, energy-efficient, and low-mass spacecraft systems to provide environmental control and life support systems (ECLSS) critical to enabling long duration human missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). Highly reliable, closed-loop life support systems are among the capabilities required for the longer duration human space exploration missions assessed by NASA’s Habitability Architecture Team.

Shull, Sarah A.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Systems analysis of a closed loop ECLSS using the ASPEN simulation tool. Thermodynamic efficiency analysis of ECLSS components

Our first goal in this project was to perform a systems analysis of a closed loop Environmental Control Life Support System (ECLSS). This pertains to the development of a model of an existing real system from which to assess the state or performance of the existing system. Systems analysis is applied to conceptual models obtained from a system design effort. For our modelling purposes we used a simulator tool called ASPEN (Advanced System for Process Engineering). Our second goal was to evaluate the thermodynamic efficiency of the different components comprising an ECLSS. Use is made of the second law of thermodynamics to determine the amount of irreversibility of energy loss of each component. This will aid design scientists in selecting the components generating the least entropy, as our penultimate goal is to keep the entropy generation of the whole system at a minimum.

Chatterjee, Sharmista↗
NASA NTRS2023

ECS Artemis II Upgrades

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) actively works to further the expectations of space exploration and research. NASA has been able to develop innovative technology and methods that has allowed for continued discovery and innovation. NASA is in the midst of work for the Artemis mission, which is to return to the moon in an effort to prepare for future Mars exploration. After the successful launch of Artemis I last November, our sights have shifted to Artemis II, which is set to launch next year and bring humans into the lunar orbit for the first time in over fifty years. Artemis II will be the first crewed mission for the program and will represent another step forward in our mission to advance our knowledge of the universe around us. From there, the Artemis program will move onto building a permanent site on the moon that will allow us to eventually reach Mars. During my time at NASA, I was able to work with the NE-XF Branch, also known as the Environmental and Life Support Systems Branch. I specifically worked with the Environmental Control Systems (ECS) team. During my time here, construction on the system in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and at Launchpad 39B have been progressing at full force. ECS is used to provide processed and purged air at specific temperatures, pressures, and humidity’s to fulfill requirements necessary to support Orion and the SLS. While the Pad has been undergoing upgrades from the original Artemis I configuration, the VAB has a completely new ECS very similar to it. While both systems have been undergoing upgrades, we have been able to transition into testing the systems as we prepare for stacking in the VAB early next year. My role has allowed me to learn about how the systems work and function through walkdowns and visits out to both the Pad and the VAB. I’ve been able to see firsthand how the system operates and have learned how the system affects the vehicle. I’ve been able to shadow my mentor, my coworkers, and COMET operators to oversee the construction efforts of the system along with the testing of the software and the system itself. I even was able to aid in testing at the console myself at Pad 39B. Additionally, I am also revising and reviewing displays for Artemis IV that will be used to remotely control parts of the system. Eventually these displays will be used to support the future of Artemis.

Monique Toon↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

ECLSS Does Not Exist in a Vacuum: Integrated Analysis is Necessary to Inform System Architecture Decisions

Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) architecture selection has profound implications for mission cost and mass extending far beyond the ECLSS itself. Similarly, other mission architecture decisions – particularly involving transportation systems – can influence optimal ECLSS architectures. Loop closure influences requirements for water, oxygen, and other consumables. System maintainability and reliability influences spares mass and risk. System, consumables, and spares mass interact with transportation system architectures and propellant demands and propulsion element sizing. All these interactions with other systems must be considered when evaluating ECLSS options. Analyses that focus only on maximizing ECLSS loop closure – or minimizing ECLSS mass, or minimizing ECLSS life cycle cost – may lead to sub-optimal or even counterproductive system architecture and investment decisions at the mission level. For example, an ECLSS architecture that minimizes ECLSS lifecycle cost but results in excessively high logistics mass could lead to significantly increased transportation system costs or make interplanetary transportation infeasible. Increased loop closure could result in higher development costs and higher mass if system/spares mass increases outweigh consumables reduction. In addition, systems mass and consumables mass are not directly comparable and have different impacts on propellant requirements, as consumables mass changes over the course of the mission. This paper presents an integrated analysis examining the overall impact of different ECLSS and transportation architectures on mass for a crewed Mars mission, including the habitat and transportation systems as well as consumables, spares, and propellant. Key observations are discussed, along with opportunities for further sensitivity analysis and model development. Overall, ECLSS development activities must consider their impacts at the mission level, as part of an integrated system, rather than in isolation.

Systems Analysis↗
NASA NTRS2006

International Space Station (ISS) Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) System Overview of Events: February 2005 - 2006

The International Space Station (ISS) continues to mature and operate its life support equipment. Major events occurring between February 2005 and February 2006 are discussed in this paper, as are updates from previously ongoing hardware anomalies. This paper addresses the major ISS operation events over the last year. Impact to overall ISS operations is also discussed.

Gentry, Gregory J.↗
NASA NTRS2004

International Space Station (ISS) Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) System Overview of Events: February 2002 - 2004

The International Space Station continues to build up its life support equipment capability. Several ECLS equipment failures have occurred since Lab activation in February 2001. Major problems occurring between February 2001 and February 2002 were discussed in other works. Major problems occurring between February 2002 and February 2003 are discussed in this paper, as are updates from previously ongoing unresolved problems. This paper addresses failures, and root cause, with particular emphasis on likely micro-gravity causes. Impact to overall station operations and proposed and accomplished fixes will also be discussed.

Gentry, Gregory J.↗
NASA NTRS2007

International Space Station (ISS) Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) System Overview of Events: February 2006 - 2007

The International Space Station (ISS) continues to mature and operate its life support equipment. Major events occurring between February 2006 and February 2007 are discussed in this paper, as are updates from previously ongoing hardware anomalies. This paper addresses the major ISS operation events over the last year. Impact to overall ISS operations is also discussed.

Gentry, Gregory J.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

International Space Station (ISS) Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) System Overview of Events 2022

Nov 20th, 2022 marks the 24th anniversary of the beginning of construction of the International Space Station(ISS). The ECLS system is constantly changing to meet the needs of current missions and future exploration. The ISS has become the laboratory that was always envisioned, allowing for an ever-growing class of exploration level technologies that will propel the stage forward as humanity advances beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This paper will review the past year, and look towards the future for each U.S. ECLS subsystem. The impacts, challenges, and successes related to the intermingling of incumbent and cutting edge technologies are summarily discussed in this paper.

Steven F Balistreri↗