MELISSA: A potential experiment for a precursor mission to the Moon

Agriculture for Space: People and Places Paving the Way

“…In 1987, the European Space Agency initiated its Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative (MELiSSA) project to test life support concepts based on ecological principles for materials cycling (Mergeay et al, 1988). Much of the initial MELiSSA testing focused on waste processing using microbial systems, with photosynthetic bacteria or cyanobacteria for biomass production (Lasseur et al, 1996;Godia et al, 2004). Over the following years, MELiSSA expanded to include plants for a controlled environment agriculture compartment, which could be coupled to the microbial and cyanobacteria compartments (Waters et al, 2002;Godia et al, 2004).…”

Wheeler Raymond Agriculture for Space: People and Countries Paving the Way

“…Much of the initial MELiSSA testing focused on waste processing using microbial systems, with photosynthetic bacteria or cyanobacteria for biomass production (Lasseur et al, 1996;Godia et al, 2004) [102, 64]. Over the following years, MELiSSA expanded to include plants for a controlled environment agriculture compartment, which could be coupled to the microbial and cyanobacteria compartments (Waters et al, 2002; [189,64].…”

Plant bioregenerative life supports: The Italian CAB Project

“…In particular, Thales Alenia Space Italia has become a major actor in the design, procurement and integration of the ECLSS (Russell & Klaus 2007) of six ISS modules (Christol 2007). Several studies and technological developments in advanced life support components and the definition of new exploration architectures and habitat concepts are ongoing, also with the support of academia and research centres (Lasseur et al 1996, Godia et al 2002.…”

“…In the meantime, major space agencies have started to plan and develop future human activities in space (Fulget et al 1999, Godia et al 2002, Stuffler et al 2004, Hendrickx et al 2006. These are initially aimed at human exploration of the Moon and later of Mars (Lasseur et al 1996, Paille et al 1999, Teixeira 2007. The complexity of the re-supply scenarios will require these missions to have a high level of autonomy.…”