Plant bioregenerative life supports: The Italian CAB Project

Lobascio, Cesare; Lamantea, M.; Cotronei, V.; Negri, B.; Pascale, Stefania De; Maggio, Aurelio; Foti, Maria Cristina; Palumberi, Sergio

doi:10.1080/17429140701549793

Cited by 9 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…Those for the first mission may be sent off Earth, but launch costs, travel times, and risks of failure are such that the viability of a sustainable program will depend on our ability to produce consumables on site (Horneck et al, 2006 ). Life sciences may support this ability: biological systems for the production and recycling of essential resources, referred to as bioregenerative life-support systems (BLSS), have been proposed for spaceflight and planetary outposts (see for instance Gòdia et al, 2002 ; Lobascio et al, 2007 ; Nelson et al, 2010 ). Some include cyanobacteria.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Low-Pressure, N2/CO2 Atmosphere Is Suitable for Cyanobacterium-Based Life-Support Systems on Mars

et al. 2021

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The leading space agencies aim for crewed missions to Mars in the coming decades. Among the associated challenges is the need to provide astronauts with life-support consumables and, for a Mars exploration program to be sustainable, most of those consumables should be generated on site. Research is being done to achieve this using cyanobacteria: fed from Mars's regolith and atmosphere, they would serve as a basis for biological life-support systems that rely on local materials. Efficiency will largely depend on cyanobacteria's behavior under artificial atmospheres: a compromise is needed between conditions that would be desirable from a purely engineering and logistical standpoint (by being close to conditions found on the Martian surface) and conditions that optimize cyanobacterial productivity. To help identify this compromise, we developed a low-pressure photobioreactor, dubbed Atmos, that can provide tightly regulated atmospheric conditions to nine cultivation chambers. We used it to study the effects of a 96% N2, 4% CO2 gas mixture at a total pressure of 100 hPa on Anabaena sp. PCC 7938. We showed that those atmospheric conditions (referred to as MDA-1) can support the vigorous autotrophic, diazotrophic growth of cyanobacteria. We found that MDA-1 did not prevent Anabaena sp. from using an analog of Martian regolith (MGS-1) as a nutrient source. Finally, we demonstrated that cyanobacterial biomass grown under MDA-1 could be used for feeding secondary consumers (here, the heterotrophic bacterium E. coli W). Taken as a whole, our results suggest that a mixture of gases extracted from the Martian atmosphere, brought to approximately one tenth of Earth's pressure at sea level, would be suitable for photobioreactor modules of cyanobacterium-based life-support systems. This finding could greatly enhance the viability of such systems on Mars.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Low-Pressure, N2/CO2 Atmosphere Is Suitable for Cyanobacterium-Based Life-Support Systems on Mars

et al. 2021

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“…Even in the case where these are the backbones of life-support systems, biological modules could both complement them and provide safe redundancies. Consequently, various bioregenerative lifesupport systems (BLSS) are or have been under development for recycling food, water and gases both in space (e.g., Godia et al 2002;Gitelson et al 2003;Drysdale et al 2004;Lobascio et al 2007;Nelson et al 2010;Giacomelli et al 2012) and within lunar and Martian outposts (e.g., Gitelson 1992;Blüm et al 1994;Tikhomirov et al 2007;Nelson et al 2010). This may sound promising: instead of sending resources in amounts almost proportional to the mission length, only a few weeks' worth of consumables would be sent and recycled.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable life support on Mars – the potential roles of cyanobacteria

Verseux

Baqué

Lehto

et al. 2015

International Journal of Astrobiology

139

136

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Even though technological advances could allow humans to reach Mars in the coming decades, launch costs prohibit the establishment of permanent manned outposts for which most consumables would be sent from Earth. This issue can be addressed by in situ resource utilization: producing part or all of these consumables on Mars, from local resources. Biological components are needed, among other reasons because various resources could be efficiently produced only by the use of biological systems. But most plants and microorganisms are unable to exploit Martian resources, and sending substrates from Earth to support their metabolism would strongly limit the cost-effectiveness and sustainability of their cultivation. However, resources needed to grow specific cyanobacteria are available on Mars due to their photosynthetic abilities, nitrogen-fixing activities and lithotrophic lifestyles. They could be used directly for various applications, including the production of food, fuel and oxygen, but also indirectly: products from their culture could support the growth of other organisms, opening the way to a wide range of life-support biological processes based on Martian resources. Here we give insights into how and why cyanobacteria could play a role in the development of self-sustainable manned outposts on Mars.

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Reliability Model of Bioregenerative Reactor of Life Support System for Deep Space Habitation

Kabashkin

Glukhikh

2023

Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems

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Plant bioregenerative life supports: The Italian CAB Project

Cited by 9 publications

References 95 publications

A Low-Pressure, N2/CO2 Atmosphere Is Suitable for Cyanobacterium-Based Life-Support Systems on Mars

A Low-Pressure, N2/CO2 Atmosphere Is Suitable for Cyanobacterium-Based Life-Support Systems on Mars

Sustainable life support on Mars – the potential roles of cyanobacteria

Reliability Model of Bioregenerative Reactor of Life Support System for Deep Space Habitation

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