Giorgio Boscheri

Bio-Regenerative Life Support System Development for Lunar/Mars Habitats

Bio-regenerative Life Support Systems (BLSS) uses biological processes to support an astronaut crew, and includes atmosphere revitalization, water recycling, food production, and organic waste recycling. The University of Arizona Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (UA-CEAC), Systems and Industrial Engineering Department, Sadler Machine Co. (USA) and Italian collaborators, Thales Alenia Space Italia (TAS-I), Aero-Sekur, SpA, and University of Naples Federico II are developing BLSS for future Lunar/Mars surface missions. Current efforts at UA-CEAC include operation of four BLSS Lunar Greenhouse (LGH) Prototype Units with the primary purpose of demonstrating poly-culture production of food crops in a semi-closed gaseous cycle, and preliminary efforts of waste DWEComposting, Solar Concentrating Plant Lighting/Power System, and System Monitoring/Telepresence Support. TAS-I, the University of Naples, and Aero-Sekur BLSS efforts in Italy include operation of Recyclab, the EDEN chamber, and the development of space plant growth chambers. UA-CEAC efforts are supported by NASA Ralph Steckler Phase II Space Grant while the Italian collaborators have been supported by ESA, ASI, and regional, and internal sources. Based on NASA crop production area estimates the LGH with its four modules will support a four person crew with 100% of their water/atmosphere

Evaluation of Bio-regenerative Life Support Systems in the frame of a Concurrent International Cooperation

With concurrent interests on Bio-regenerative Life Support Systems (BLSS), Italian and USA industrial and academic institutions, including Thales Alenia Spac e Italia (TAS-I), the University of Arizona (UA) an d the Sadler Machine Company have teamed in a collaboration effort. The collaboration has been providing personnel exchanges, sharing accumulated experiences and complementary competencies to establish synergies in the multi-dis ciplinary field of BLSS. The initial phase has linked aerosp ace engineering and system design competences together with other professional fields of plant sciences, controlled e nvironment production systems, mathematical modeling and computational analysis. The overriding theme of our activities is the succe ssful crop production, with effective resources uti lization, such that sufficient edible biomass will be continu ously provided to supply the desired percentage of the crew food calories from the system. The focus is mainly with crops targeted for space such as lettuce, sweet pot ato and tomato. Using available data and existing models, crop prod uction studies have been designed and implemented to achieve production results within a semi-closed structure t hat will be useful for correlation studies, as well as for strengthening the experiences with an operational p rototype BLSS. While the EDEN controlled plant growth chamber sited at TAS-I Recyclab has been operated to focus TAS-I engineers attention on the critical physical and biological aspects on a small scale demonstrator, the 22 m 3 Lunar Greenhouse (LGH) Prototype, sited at the Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (CEAC) at the University of Arizona (UA), has been upgraded and prepared for 9months of extensive utilization, supported by the N ASA Steckler Space Grant (Phase 1, January ‐ October 2010). Data will be evaluated within a TAS-I implemented model for the plant-life-support element, based on t he NASA Modified Energy Cascade (MEC) Model for Crop Growth 19,21 . Testing is in progress and data acquisition, management, utilization and improvements of the models will be completed. The subsequent system simul ations will be used for developing future designs of such facil ities. This paper describes the collaboration, focusing on the available facilities improvement, the definiti on of the data gathering, storage and elaboration strategies, the discussion of the preliminary results achieved and the illustration of the forthcoming activities.

New Concepts Evaluation of Flexible Water Bags for Space Applications

Onboard the International Space Station (ISS), water is well known to be an essential resource for life support: purification and recycling water systems are used to minimize its consumption. Nevertheless, it is necessary to provide periodically additional water through logistical support missions. With the dismissal of the Shuttle, procurement of equipment and supplies was delegated to the pressurized cargo modules, which transport rigid or flexible containers filled with potable water for crew consumer. This work shows the preliminary study results focused on the realization of flexible bags which can operate in commercial space missions for different operative scenarios. In one case the described bags would supply the two potable water qualities coexisting on the ISS with different bactericidal agents (iodine and silver for respectively American and Russian waters) and once drained they could be refilled or contain other fluids (e.g. waste water). The bags are foreseen to be collocated and transported inside modified Cargo Transportation Bags, starting from what already designed for the Cygnus commercial cargo, but adapted to the different needs. In addition, this paper briefly reports the related contribute to the study of the Reconfigurable Cargo Transportation Bags under development at NASA Ames.

UV-C Photocatalytic System for VOC's Removal

In the frame of space Advanced Life Support research, one of the targets of Thales Alenia Space RecycLAB laboratory is the study of photocatalysis for crew cabin as well as for space greenhouses air decontamination from volatile organic compounds (VOCs). For the purpose, the ZEUS demonstrator, a multi-functional system designed to characterize different air revitalization technologies and able to accommodate reactors of different shape, has been used. ZEUS was equipped with an ultraviolet (UV) lamp installed into a coaxial cylinder covered internally with a TiO 2 catalytic layer. The VOCs concentration was monitored by a gas chromatograph with flame ionization detector, connected to the demonstrator by an on-line sampling system. The first studied application was the degradation of ethylene, a phytohormone produced by plants that influences the growth and development processes, harmful to plants and their edible products in the case of a chronic exposure to high levels typical of closed environment greenhouses. This paper reports the data obtained using an UV-C lamp as a radiation source and multiple reactor configurations, in order to have the best performances for ethylene degradation. The possibility of the exploitation for the photocatalytic process of UV light directly available in space and on planets (e. g. Mars) is investigated as lower cost alternative to currently used consumable absorbent materials. For this purpose, a second experiment was performed using a lamp with UV-C irradiance equal to that reaching the Martian surface in optimum conditions.