Analysis of a Spacecraft Life Support System for a Mars Mission

Silkworms culture as a source of protein for humans in space

“…In recent years, extensive researches have been carried out on this issue by USA, Russia, Japan, and Europe (Barstev et al, 1996;Drysdale et al, 2002;Ashida, 2003;Czupalla et al, 2005). Studies on the requirements towards space animals feeding to provide edible animal protein have been conducted (Manukovsky et al, 2005;Czupalla et al, 2004). The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) explored in space growth systems of higher plants including wheat, soybean and potatoes.…”

The conceptual design of a hybrid life support system based on the evaluation and comparison of terrestrial testbeds

“…As a comparison, the P/C LSS designed by Czupalla et al (2004) had an ESM of 4830 kg/CM. The difference in ESM between the two systems is even greater when one considers that no redundancies have yet been included in the bioregenerative LSS, while the P/C option has a double redundancy included in its system parameters and in the ESM.…”

“…Instead, a Vapor Compression Distillation (VCD) unit was utilized. The VCD was the optimal system in a previous study considering P/C technology (Czupalla et al, 2004).…”

“…For comparison, pyrolysis was also traded, which had won a waste processing trade study using P/C methods only (Czupalla et al, 2004). In the case of MELISSA, VFAs were considered a useful output product as they were an incidental compound for the functioning of the MELISSA system.…”

“…The goal of this study was to develop an Equivalent System Mass (ESM) optimized conceptual design of an LSS for a long-term human mission to Mars for a crew of six. This crew size was taken from the NASA Design Reference Mission (DRM) Scenario (Hoffman and Kaplan, 1997 physico-chemical (P/C) LSS was already developed by Czupalla et al (2004), this study concentrated on bioregenerative LSS methods, based on the following existing terrestrial demonstrations: MELISSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative) -a European approach towards the development of a closed biological life support system (MELISSA Final Report, 1997). BIOS, a Russian approach, with closed experiments conducted with two and three men crews in closure for up to five months Bartsev et al, 2000).…”