Figure 1—ESS mister nozzle (credit: NASA)
Spraying technology developed at the NASA Kennedy Space Center helps to overcome the challenges of microgravity on the use of aerial fluids in space while at the same time allows for more efficient spraying on Earth, helping to support more sustainable agriculture.
Searching for High-resolution Volatiles: Lunar Trailblazer Illustration (credit: Lockheed Martin Space)
In the 1800s and 1900s on Earth, you made your fortune if you discovered a new petroleum source. More colorfully spoken, “Striking it Rich!” was the subject of movies, such as 1956 Giant and the television series The Beverly Hillbillies. The competition is heating up for the discovery and capture lunar resources due to the new space race there. Aside from its symbolic value, water can enable life and be used for in situ fuels and other materials. What progress has been made to find and utilize lunar water? Water on the moon might be even more valuable than petroleum on Earth.
SustainSpace has covered water use and recycling on the International Space Station (ISS) in NASA Targets Reduced Water Usage for Long Duration Missions (2014 and Airbus ESA Advanced Closed Loop System (ACLS) (2018), etc. Some of that technology can be used on the Moon. Yet what is new?
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Capillary Evaporator prototype with transparent capillary structures filled with test fluids. Credits: IRPI LLC
Human use a lot of water for drinking and hygiene. Recycling is a key strategy to make the water that is launched into space last longer. Existing water recycling methods in space use harmful chemicals or considerable energy, and do not recycle 100% of the water. Reliability is crucial as well. So the search continues for new approaches to improve the water recycling process.
NASA is considering capillary structures for water recycling. Capillary action involves electrostatic forces literally pulling water through small tubes, similar to how drops of water will hang on objects despite the force of gravity pulling them away. NASA’s capillary structures investigation studies “a new method of water recycling and carbon dioxide removal using structures designed in specific shapes to manage fluid and gas mixtures in microgravity.” The capillary structures equipment is made up of small, 3-D printed geometric shapes and sizes sizes (see above image).
ACLS technology demonstrator generates oxygen and water in a closed system
The Advanced Closed Loop System (ACLS) is an advanced life support system that has been developed by Airbus for the European Space Agency (ESA) to be used as a technology demonstrator on the ISS, in the Destiny module, from summer 2018. The ACLS will be installed in the HTV-7 space transporter at the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan and is due to be transported to the ISS in August 2018. It is set to be operated for a period of one year.
Water Recovery System (credit: NASA)
Water is essential for human survival on Earth and in space. A typical person requires between 3.5 to 15 liters per day. Yet launching large quantities of water up to the International Space Station (ISS) is terribly expensive, and would be a major impediment to future space settlement. So NASA has made water recycling a vital part of closing the life support “loop”. Meanwhile, water is often in short supply even on the Earth, especially in a clean, drinkable form.
MELIiSSA Loop, courtesy of ESA.
Previous postings have discussed NASA’s Contained Environment Life Support Systems (CELSS), so it’s time to share some of the limelight with the European Space Agency’s MELIiSSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative) research program. With MELIiSSA, we bloggers will never need to leave home again assuming there will be a household version someday. All we’ll need is a computer, an internet connection and MELIiSSA, and life will become a carefree, digital bliss.
MELIiSSA “aims to develop the technology required for a future biological life support system for long term manned space missions.” In fact, MELISSA claims to go “further than other recycling systems used on Mir or the International Space Station which purify water and recycle exhaled carbon dioxide”, by attempting to “recycle organic waste for food production.” Most of the pictures of MELISSA are not very pretty, but the MELISSA loop schematic (upper left) illustrates MELISSA’s approach. MELISSA utilizes five compartments that provide an entire ecosystem loop from human food production, to human consumption to recycling human wastes:
Compartment 1: The Liquefying Compartment
Compartment 2: The Photoheterotrophic Compartment
Compartment 3: The Nitrifying Compartment
Compartment 4: The Photoautotophic Compartment
Compartment 5: The Crew
What I like about MELISSA is that technology transfer is a built-in phase of the program (Phase 4). Presently, a great deal of biological waste produced by human is not only completely wasted, but becoming a severe landfill and human health problem. MELISSA techhnology can potentially be both scaled up and down to profitably utilize this waste. MELISSA offers some exciting opportunities.
The ESA claims that a Belgian company has already used MELISSA research to “devise methods to remove as much as 85% of the solid waste left over after waste-water treatment and to convert it into water and methane gas, which can be used to generate electricity.” (See ESA posting). The Phase 4 page lists several other examples. For more information on potential opportunities with MELISSA, see Technology Transfer Programme Office.
Notes:
Quotes are from the MELIiSSA website viewed today, unless otherwise noted.
Image: MELIiSSA Loop, courtesy of ESA.