Environmental Control and Life Support System Developed for Deep Space Travel

Date

2017-07-16

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

47th International Conference on Environmental Systems

Abstract

NASA outlined plans to journey from the current Low Earth Orbit toward earth independent exploration, evolving habitat capacity to support a trip to Mars, a planetary visit, and return home 3 years later. The Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) are being developed to enable this vision. UTAS completed the first phase of this advancement, or NextSTEP, in September 2016, and is currently working on the second phase design for a universal ECLSS Module to support the different habitats.

The team defined an evolutionary path that advances a 90-day Cislunar ECLSS toward a deep space, 1,100-day configuration. Integral to this configuration are: a Universal ECLSS Pallet design that enhances in-flight maintenance and, Integrated ECLSS Control System that enables the use of Machine Learning algorithms, intelligent sensors, and a state-of-the-art cross-pallet communication.

The overarching design activities included in this effort define a time dependent strategy enabling deep space exploration.

Description

Thomas Stapleton, United Technologies Corporation Aerospace Systems (UTC), USA
Michael Heldmann, United Technologies Corporation Aerospace Systems (UTC), USA
Miguel Torres, United Technologies Corporation Aerospace Systems (UTC), USA
Jonathan O'Neill, United Technologies Corporation Aerospace Systems (UTC), USA
Tracy Scott-Parry, United Technologies Corporation Aerospace Systems (UTC), USA
Roger Corallo, United Technologies Corporation Aerospace Systems (UTC), USA
Kimberly White, United Technologies Corporation Aerospace Systems (UTC), USA
Scott Schneider, United Technologies Corporation Aerospace Systems (UTC), USA
ICES501: Life Support Systems Engineering and Analysis
The 47th International Conference on Environmental Systems was held in South Carolina, USA on 16 July 2017 through 20 July 2017

Rights

Rights Availability

Keywords

Modularity, Development, Deep Space, ECLS, Life Support

Citation