Failure Mode and Effects Analysis for Environmental Control and Life Support System Self-Awareness

An Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) meets the environmental and metabolic needs of the crew. However, regenerable ECLSS subsystems have required continuous monitoring and frequent maintenance and repair. For the International Space Station (ISS), ground control monitors these subsystems and directs maintenance and repair operations using replacement components and assemblies sent from Earth via resupply. While this has been sustainable for the ISS, habitats for crewed Moon and Mars missions will need to be less dependent on Earth, requiring the ECLSS to be more self-sustaining. For “self-awareness”, the ECLSS will be expected to detect and diagnose component and system health in real time. To do so, the possible failure modes of each ECLSS subsystem and their effects on operability and performance, habitability and crew health must be known. This then informs the data that must be collected via instruments and sensors, and then synthesized for meaningful projections of ECLSS health. This paper summarizes the findings of a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) conducted for ECLSS subsystems. We use these results to define a framework for implementing self-awareness into the ECLSS architecture.