Life Support Systems Beyond Low Earth Orbit Advocates for an Improved Resources Management Approach

Audas, Chloé; Ugalde, Sandra; Paille, Christel; Lamaze, Brigitte; Lasseur, Christophe

doi:10.32006/eeep.2022.1.0513

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…While the cost per kilogram of launching a payload to the International Space Station has decreased in recent years, mass and volume are still important considerations within the spaceflight environment (Zabel, 2021;Audas et al, 2022). Each of these different approaches had varying masses, and as previously mentioned, there are degrees of reusability to all the items, so replacement parts should also be considered when evaluating the total hardware mass (Levri et al, 2000;Brunet et al, 2010;Audas et al, 2022). In this study, hardware mass was not factored in because the different solutions were not designed for mass optimization and thus introducing hardware mass as a factor would have been misleading.…”

Section: Recommendations On the Hardwarementioning

confidence: 99%

Design, Build and Testing of Hardware to Safely Harvest Microgreens in Microgravity

Boles,

Poulet,

Johnson

et al. 2023

Gravitational and Space Research

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In long-duration space missions, crops will supplement the astronaut diet. One proposed crop type is microgreens, the young seedlings of edible plants that are known for their high nutritional levels, intense flavors, colorful appearance, and variety of textures. While these characteristics make microgreens promising for space crop production, their small size presents a unique challenge within the microgravity environment. To address this challenge, a microgreen planting box was developed to improve microgreen harvest techniques both in 1 g and in microgravity without concern for contamination by roots. Using this microgreen planting box, three parabolic flights were conducted where two different bagging methods (attached and manual) and three different microgreen cutting methods (Guillotine, Pepper Grinder, Scissors) were tested. In flight, the microgreens were contained within a glovebox and footage of all microgreen harvests was recorded. Statistical and trade analyses revealed that the combination of Cutting & Bagging method that performed the best was the Pepper Grinder with attached bagging. This was based on the following criteria: (1) average execution time, (2) microgreen debris, (3) biomass yield, (4) root debris, (5) microgreens left on the hardware, (6) number of seedlings growing under the lids, (7) hardware failure, and (8) perceived ease of use. This process allowed us to identify weaknesses and strengths of all hardware types and helped us identify major points of improvement within the hardware design to harvest microgreens in microgravity. Future directions include microgreen harvests in analog environments and further development of microgreen Cutting & Bagging method.

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Section: Recommendations On the Hardwarementioning

confidence: 99%

Design, Build and Testing of Hardware to Safely Harvest Microgreens in Microgravity

Boles,

Poulet,

Johnson

et al. 2023

Gravitational and Space Research

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“…These organisms gradually break down the waste and in the process provide fresh food, generate oxygen, and clean water for the crew (Nelson et al, 2010;Escobar and Nabity, 2017;. As a result, there is less reliance on constant resupply from Earth, which greatly reduces the material footprint needed for extended missions in space (Macelroy and Averner, 1978;Häder, 2020;Audas et al, 2022). Because of its constant fresh food provision, a BLSS also solves the problem that essential nutrients in processed and prepackaged food are deficient and degrade over time (Cooper et al, 2017;.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Presentations at the 2022 MELiSSA Conference – Current and Future Ways to Closed Life Support Systems

Verseux,

Paul de Vera,

Gennaro Izzo

2024

Frontiers Research Topics

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Frontiers is more than just an open access publisher of scholarly articles: it is a pioneering approach to the world of academia, radically improving the way scholarly research is managed. The grand vision of Frontiers is a world where all people have an equal opportunity to seek, share and generate knowledge. Frontiers provides immediate and permanent online open access to all its publications, but this alone is not enough to realize our grand goals. Frontiers journal seriesThe Frontiers journal series is a multi-tier and interdisciplinary set of openaccess, online journals, promising a paradigm shift from the current review, selection and dissemination processes in academic publishing. All Frontiers journals are driven by researchers for researchers; therefore, they constitute a service to the scholarly community. At the same time, the Frontiers journal series operates on a revolutionary invention, the tiered publishing system, initially addressing specific communities of scholars, and gradually climbing up to broader public understanding, thus serving the interests of the lay society, too. Dedication to qualityEach Frontiers article is a landmark of the highest quality, thanks to genuinely collaborative interactions between authors and review editors, who include some of the world's best academicians. Research must be certified by peers before entering a stream of knowledge that may eventually reach the public -and shape society; therefore, Frontiers only applies the most rigorous and unbiased reviews. Frontiers revolutionizes research publishing by freely delivering the most outstanding research, evaluated with no bias from both the academic and social point of view. By applying the most advanced information technologies, Frontiers is catapulting scholarly publishing into a new generation. What are Frontiers Research Topics?Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers journals series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area.

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“…Bioregenerative life support systems (BLSS) will be a key component of future long-duration space exploration, as they can reduce mission mass and volume (Imhof et al, 2017;Audas et al, 2022). A BLSS recycles human waste by feeding it to an artificial ecosystem consisting of a range of different organisms, such as higher plants, microalgae, and bacteria.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These organisms gradually break down the waste and in the process provide fresh food, generate oxygen, and clean water for the crew (Nelson et al, 2010;Escobar and Nabity, 2017;Pannico et al, 2022). As a result, there is less reliance on constant resupply from Earth, which greatly reduces the material footprint needed for extended missions in space (Macelroy and Averner, 1978;Häder, 2020;Audas et al, 2022). Because of its constant fresh food provision, a BLSS also solves the problem that essential nutrients in processed and prepackaged food are deficient and degrade over time (Cooper et al, 2017;Carillo et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stoichiometric model of a fully closed bioregenerative life support system for autonomous long-duration space missions

Vermeulen

Papic²,

Nikolič

et al. 2023

Front. Astron. Space Sci.

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Bioregenerative life support systems (BLSS) are vital for long-duration and remote space missions to increase mission sustainability. These systems break down human waste materials into nutrients and CO2 for plants and other edible organisms, which in turn provide food, fresh water, and oxygen for astronauts. The central idea is to create a materially closed loop, which can significantly reduce mission mass and volume by cutting down or even eliminating disposable waste. In most BLSS studies only a fraction of the resources, such as food, are provided by the system itself, with the rest taken on board at departure or provided through resupply missions. However, for autonomous long-duration space missions without any possibility of resupply, a BLSS that generates all resources with minimal or no material loss, is essential. The goal of this study is to develop a stoichiometric model of a conceptually fully closed BLSS that provides all the metabolic needs of the crew and organisms. The MELiSSA concept of the European Space Agency is used as reference system, consisting of five interconnected compartments, each inhabited by different types of organisms. A detailed review of publicly available MELiSSA literature from 1989 to 2022 revealed that no existing stoichiometric model met the study’s requirements. Therefore, a new stoichiometric model was developed to describe the cycling of the elements C, H, O, and N through all five MELiSSA compartments and one auxiliary compartment. A compact set of chemical equations with fixed coefficients was established for this purpose. A spreadsheet model simulates the flow of all relevant compounds for a crew of six. By balancing the dimensions of the different compartments, a high degree of closure is attained at steady state, with 12 out of 14 compounds exhibiting zero loss, and oxygen and CO2 displaying only minor losses between iterations. This is the first stoichiometric model of a MELiSSA-inspired BLSS that describes a continuous provision of 100% of the food and oxygen needs of the crew. The stoichiometry serves as the foundation of an agent-based model of the MELiSSA loop, as part of the Evolving Asteroid Starships (E|A|S) research project.

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Life Support Systems Beyond Low Earth Orbit Advocates for an Improved Resources Management Approach

Cited by 3 publications

References 31 publications

Design, Build and Testing of Hardware to Safely Harvest Microgreens in Microgravity

Design, Build and Testing of Hardware to Safely Harvest Microgreens in Microgravity

Presentations at the 2022 MELiSSA Conference – Current and Future Ways to Closed Life Support Systems

Stoichiometric model of a fully closed bioregenerative life support system for autonomous long-duration space missions

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