Browsing by Author "Darnell, Asa"
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Item MarsOASIS: A predeployable miniature Martian greenhouse for crop production research(45th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2015-07-12) Darnell, Asa; Azad, Anurag; Borlaug, Brennan; Case, Daniel; Chamberlain, Christine; Fortier, Kier; Guerrie, Paul; Jethani, Henna; Marino, John; Soma, Chaitanya; Srivastava, Aastha; Wasswnberg, Alex; Holquist, Jordan; Nabity, James A.In order to enable long term habitation on planetary surfaces, a means of sustainable food production must be developed. The MarsOASIS greenhouse concept evolved to research crop production and serve as a proof of concept for larger scale food production facilities that would support manned missions to the surface of Mars. Utilizing in situ resources such as the Martian atmosphere, sunlight, and UV-C radiation, the greenhouse aims to provide a sustainable method of long-term food production requiring minimal consumable resources. The MarsOASIS system is capable of growing a full life cycle of Outredgeous lettuce with its autonomous control system designed for an unmanned environment and the option for teleoperation. A reduced-scope prototype of MarsOASIS is being developed to test technologies such as natural/artificial hybrid lighting, water recycling, remote teleoperation, and fully autonomous monitoring and control of the greenhouse. The prototype is currently in the final stages of design, with a full demonstration of plant life cycle testing set to occur in summer 2015. Results from this prototype demonstration will help quantify the feasibility of the innovative approaches incorporated in the MarsOASIS design.Item SABL – An EXPRESS locker-sized incubator for performing biological experiments onboard the ISS(45th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2015-07-12) Niederwieser, Tobias; Anthony, Jonathan; Darnell, Asa; King, Geoffrey; Koenig, Paul; Stodieck, Louis; Wright, Jim; Gahbler, Philipp; Hoehn, AlexanderThe Space Automated Bioproduct Lab (SABL) is an EXPRESS locker-sized incubator developed by BioServe Space Technologies for use on the International Space Station (ISS). SABL provides a 41.9 x 27.9 x 19.4 cm (16.6” x 11.1” x 7.8”, DxWxH) sized science research module (SRM) volume, which can be temperature-controlled from -5 to +43 °C. SABL improves over the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA) in several aspects including higher thermal ramp rate, lower thermal gradients, enhanced experiment control, software adaptability, and crew interaction. SABL is designed to accommodate a variety of existing legacy life sciences hardware that was previously used with CGBA, enabling SABL to function as a flexible lab for biological experiments in microgravity. This paper focuses on the thermal design of the payload as well as on the verification testing of the engineering unit. The design process for SABL focused on minimizing thermal gradients within the SRM volume, improving thermal ramp rates between temperature set points, and eliminating the usage of forward facing cabin air exhaust systems that produce unacceptable acoustic noise. Temperature control of the SRM is accomplished using a total of four thermoelectric coolers (TECs) mounted to the top and bottom surfaces of the SRM. SABL utilizes the EXPRESS Moderate Temperature Loop (MTL) as a thermal sink for the TECs and avionics. Thermal feedback control and safety monitoring is implemented using a suite of sensors that interface to an NI sbRIO-9636 data acquisition and control computer. Performance of the engineering unit was characterized to verify thermal models of operation, cooling/heating times, and robustness against uneven internal heat loads and off-nominal operation. After starting development in 2011, the first two SABL units are manifested to launch to the ISS onboard SpaceX CRS-8 in the fall of 2015.