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At least 109 records · Page 6
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2011

Characterization of Volume F Trash from Four Recent STS Missions: Weights, Categorization, Water Content

The fate of space-generated solid wastes, including trash, for future missions is under consideration by NASA. Several potential treatment options are under consideration and active technology development. Potential fates for space-generated solid wastes are: Storage without treatment; storage after treatment(s) including volume reduction, water recovery, sterilization, and recovery plus recycling of waste materials. Recycling might be important for partial or full closure scenarios because of the prohibitive costs associated with resupply of consumable materials. For this study, we determined the composition of trash returned from four recent STS missions. The trash material was 'Volume F' trash and other trash, in large zip-lock bags, that accompanied the Volume F trash. This is the first of two submitted papers on these wastes. This one will cover trash content, weight and water content. The other will report on the microbial Characterization of this trash. STS trash was usually made available within 2 days of landing at KSC. The Volume F bag was weighed, opened and the contents were catalogued and placed into one of the following categories: food waste (and containers), drink containers, personal hygiene items - including EVA maximum absorbent garments (MAGs)and Elbow packs (daily toilet wipes, etc), paper, and packaging materials - plastic firm and duct tape. Trash generation rates for the four STS missions: Total wet trash was 0.602 plus or minus 0.089 kg(sub wet) crew(sup -1) d(sup -1) containing about 25% water at 0.154 plus or minus 0.030 kg(sub water) crew(sup -1) d(sup -1) (avg plus or minus stdev). Cataloguing by category: personal hygiene wastes accounted for 50% of the total trash and 69% of the total water for the four missions; drink items were 16% of total weight and 16% water; food wastes were 22% of total weight and 15% of the water; office waste and plastic film were 2% and 11% of the total waste and did not contain any water. The results can be used by NASA to determine requirements and criteria for Waste Management Systems on future missions.

Strayer, Richard F.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Microbial Characterization Space Solid Wastes Treated with a Heat Melt Compactor

The on going purpose of the project efforts was to characterize and determine the fate of microorganisms in space-generated solid wastes before and after processing by candidate solid waste processing. For FY 11, the candidate technology that was assessed was the Heat Melt Compactor (HMC). The scope included five HMC. product disks produced at ARC from either simulated space-generated trash or from actual space trash, Volume F compartment wet waste, returned on STS 130. This project used conventional microbiological methods to detect and enumerate microorganisms in heat melt compaction (HMC) product disks as well as surface swab samples of the HMC hardware before and after operation. In addition, biological indicators were added to the STS trash prior to compaction in order to determine if these spore-forming bacteria could survive the HMC processing conditions, i.e., high temperature (160 C) over a long duration (3 hrs). To ensure that surface dwelling microbes did not contaminate HMC product disk interiors, the disk surfaces were sanitized with 70% alcohol. Microbiological assays were run before and after sanitization and found that sanitization greatly reduced the number of identified isolates but did not totally eliminate them. To characterize the interior of the disks, ten 1.25 cm diameter core samples were aseptically obtained for each disk. These were run through the microbial characterization analyses. Low counts of bacteria, on the order of 5 to 50 per core, were found, indicating that the HMC operating conditions might not be sufficient for waste sterilization. However, the direct counts were 6 to 8 orders of magnitude greater, indicating that the vast majority of microbes present in the wastes were dead or non-cultivable. An additional indication that the HMC was sterilizing the wastes was the results from the added commercial spore test strips to the wastes prior to HMC operation. Nearly all could be recovered from the HMC disks post-operation and all were showed negative growth when run through the manufacturer's protocol, meaning that the 106 or so spores impregnated into the strips were dead. Control test strips, i.e., not exposed to the HMC conditions were all strongly positive. One area of concern is that the identities of isolates from the cultivable counts included several human pathogens, namely Staphylococcus aureus. The project reported here provides microbial characterization support to the Waste Management Systems element of the Life Support and Habitation Systems program.

Strayer, Richard F.↗
NASA NTRS2015

Concentric Split Flow Filter

A concentric split flow filter may be configured to remove odor and/or bacteria from pumped air used to collect urine and fecal waste products. For instance, filter may be designed to effectively fill the volume that was previously considered wasted surrounding the transport tube of a waste management system. The concentric split flow filter may be configured to split the air flow, with substantially half of the air flow to be treated traveling through a first bed of filter media and substantially the other half of the air flow to be treated traveling through the second bed of filter media. This split flow design reduces the air velocity by 50%. In this way, the pressure drop of filter may be reduced by as much as a factor of 4 as compare to the conventional design.

Stapleton, Thomas J.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Exploration Toilet On-orbit Results and Impact on Future Missions

The Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), which has the ISS operational nomenclature “Toilet”, was initially installed on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2020 with final installation completed in 2021. Technical progress continued to be made with each on-orbit operation that culminated in additional crew use of the UWMS on ISS. Additional problems were evaluated during troubleshooting and testing with the UWMS hardware using water and pretreat to simulate crew use. This paper summarizes the additional testing, troubleshooting and the results as well as characterizes the additional data obtained and summarizes the interpretation of the data to characterize the hardware’s operational nuances. Use of the hardware by crew is planned and will also be summarized. The paper will also describe the additional portions of the technology demonstration that were completed and the benefits that inform the Orion-installed UWMS unit and future manifesting of consumables for both Orion and ISS.

toilet↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Alternate Fecal Canister On-orbit Performance and Applicability to Exploration Missions

NASA developed a collapsible canister for the collection and containment of fecal deposits on long range exploration missions as well as on space stations where mass and volume are of great impact on spacecraft and propulsion designs. Developed as an alternative to the exploration toilet hard-sided canister, the container is a smaller volume for stowage in the unfilled state which allows better use of constrained volume on smaller vehicles for longer missions while still providing the important features of odor and solid/liquid contents containment when in the filled state. A reduction in mass was also achieved for the alternate fecal canister itself, although weight of the lid and contents are common to both the hard-side canister, and the alternate fecal canister. Details of the design, flight build and certification, and technology demonstration on ISS will be discussed. The discussion will include interface requirements and design solutions for use with the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS) as well as future extensibility for other toilet systems.

toilet↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

EXCAP-LR: Exploration Capabilities Logistics Reduction

All human space missions require substantial logistical mass and volume. As our exploration missions increase in distance and duration, reduction of these logistics requirements becomes more important. The movement and tracking of logistics between vehicle elements are increasingly recognized as critical to crew efficiency and on-orbit mission assurance. This project targets the best opportunities to demonstrate logistics reduction, repurposing, and efficient tracking and management of logistics. These technologies and innovations will make future exploration missions more affordable. - REALM-3 (RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Enabled Autonomous Logistics Management) – Hydra (HYper-Distributed RFID Antenna) Smart Stow: receives RFID signal from readers, use very small % of signal to self-power on-board microcontroller and RF switch, multiplex RFID signal to other nodes in a chain or to a multitude of antennas. ISS HYDRA Smart Stow is over-instrumented to allow evaluation of a branched network HYDRA chain. - UWMS (Universal Waste Management System) – provides a compact, lower mass/volume toilet for exploration missions - ACS (Advanced Clothing Systems) – investigates ways to reduce clothing mass and volume directly or through efficiently cleaning them for reuse.

Patrick Fink↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Exploration Toilet on-Orbit Results and Impact on Future Missions

The Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), which has the ISS operational nomenclature “Toilet”, was initially installed on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2020 with final installation completed in 2021. Technical progress continued to be made with each on-orbit operation that culminated in additional crew use of the UWMS on ISS. Additional problems were evaluated during troubleshooting and testing with the UWMS hardware using water and pretreat to simulate crew use. This paper summarizes the additional testing, troubleshooting and the results as well as characterizes the additional data obtained and summarizes the interpretation of the data to characterize the hardware’s operational nuances. Use of the hardware by crew is planned and will also be summarized. The paper will also describe the additional portions of the technology demonstration that were completed and the benefits that inform the Orion-installed UWMS unit and future manifesting of consumables for both Orion and ISS.

toilet↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Exploration Toilet on-Orbit Results and Impact on Future Missions

The Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), which has the ISS operational nomenclature “Toilet”, was initially installed on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2020 with final installation completed in 2021. Technical progress continued to be made with each on-orbit operation that culminated in additional crew use of the UWMS on ISS. Additional problems were evaluated during troubleshooting and testing with the UWMS hardware using water and pretreat to simulate crew use. This paper summarizes the additional testing, troubleshooting and the results as well as characterizes the additional data obtained and summarizes the interpretation of the data to characterize the hardware’s operational nuances. Use of the hardware by crew is planned and will also be summarized. The paper will also describe the additional portions of the technology demonstration that were completed and the benefits that inform the Orion-installed UWMS unit and future manifesting of consumables for both Orion and ISS.

toilet↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Exploration Toilet on-Orbit Results and Impact on Future Missions

The Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), which has the ISS operational nomenclature “Toilet”, was initially installed on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2020 with final installation completed in 2021. Technical progress continued to be made with each on-orbit operation that culminated in additional crew use of the UWMS on ISS. Additional problems were evaluated during troubleshooting and testing with the UWMS hardware using water and pretreat to simulate crew use. This paper summarizes the additional testing, troubleshooting and the results as well as characterizes the additional data obtained and summarizes the interpretation of the data to characterize the hardware’s operational nuances. Use of the hardware by crew is planned and will also be summarized. The paper will also describe the additional portions of the technology demonstration that were completed and the benefits that inform the Orion-installed UWMS unit and future manifesting of consumables for both Orion and ISS.

toilet↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Exploration Toilet Hardware Status and Crew Feedback from ISS Artemis-2 Demonstration

The Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), ISS operational nomenclature “Toilet”, was initially installed on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2020 with final installation completed in 2021. Technical progress continues to be made with each on-orbit operation and will ultimately culminate with nominal US crew use of the hardware on ISS. During 2023, the Artemis-2 Demonstration was started, and this paper discusses issues encountered, on-orbit troubleshooting, subsequent ground failure investigation and proposed repairs as well as near-term plans to resume the Artemis-2 demo. Also discussed is an update to the commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) Conductivity Monitor which is planned to be flown for the resumption of the demo along with additional UWMS hardware and Toilet Integration Hardware (TIH). An updated design of the commode seat and fecal bag for Artemis-2 UWMS will be demonstrated on ISS and a summary of the hardware is included in the paper. Use of the hardware during the first days of the aborted demonstration by crewmembers and feedback received is summarized as well as hardware updates resulting from that feedback. The paper will also provide an overview of the demo results to date that inform the Orion-installed UWMS unit and future manifesting of consumables for both Orion and ISS.

Toilet↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Exploration Toilet Hardware Status and Crew Feedback from ISS Artemis-2 Demonstration

The Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), ISS operational nomenclature “Toilet”, was initially installed on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2020 with final installation completed in 2021. Technical progress continues to be made with each on-orbit operation and will ultimately culminate with nominal US crew use of the hardware on ISS. During 2023, the Artemis-2 Demonstration was started, and this paper discusses issues encountered, on-orbit troubleshooting, subsequent ground failure investigation and proposed repairs as well as near-term plans to resume the Artemis-2 demo. Also discussed is an update to the commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) Conductivity Monitor (CCM) which is planned to be flown for the resumption of the demo along with additional UWMS hardware and Toilet Integration Hardware (TIH). An updated design of the commode seat and fecal bag for Artemis-2 UWMS will be demonstrated on ISS and a summary of the hardware is included in the paper. Use of the hardware during the first days of the aborted demonstration by crewmembers and feedback received is summarized as well as hardware updates resulting from that feedback. The paper will also provide an overview of the demo results to date that inform the Orion-installed UWMS unit and future manifesting of consumables for both Orion and ISS.

Toilet↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Exploration Hardware Status and Crew Feedback from Artemis-2 Demonstration

The Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), ISS operational nomenclature “Toilet”, was initially installed on the International Space Station (ISS) in 2020 with final installation completed in 2021. Technical progress continues to be made with each on-orbit operation and will ultimately culminate with nominal US crew use of the hardware on ISS. During 2023, the Artemis-2 Demonstration was started, and this paper discusses issues encountered, on-orbit troubleshooting, subsequent ground failure investigation and proposed repairs as well as near-term plans to resume the Artemis-2 demo. Also discussed is an update to the commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) Conductivity Monitor which is planned to be flown for the resumption of the demo along with additional UWMS hardware and Toilet Integration Hardware (TIH). An updated design of the commode seat and fecal bag for Artemis-2 UWMS will be demonstrated on ISS and a summary of the hardware is included in the paper. Use of the hardware during the first days of the aborted demonstration by crewmembers and feedback received is summarized as well as hardware updates resulting from that feedback. The paper will also provide an overview of the demo results to date that inform the Orion-installed UWMS unit and future manifesting of consumables for both Orion and ISS.

Toilet↗
NASA NTRS1989

Performance characterization of water recovery and water quality from chemical/organic waste products

The water reclamation subsystems currently being evaluated for the Space Shuttle Freedom are briefly reviewed with emphasis on a waste water management system capable of processing wastes containing high concentrations of organic/inorganic materials. The process combines low temperature/pressure to vaporize water with high temperature catalytic oxidation to decompose volatile organics. The reclaimed water is of potable quality and has high potential for maintenance under sterile conditions. Results from preliminary experiments and modifications in process and equipment required to control reliability and repeatability of system operation are presented.

Moses, W. M.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Utilizing Radioisotope Power System Waste Heat for Spacecraft Thermal Management

An advantage of using a Radioisotope Power System (RPS) for deep space or planetary surface missions is the readily available waste heat, which can be used for a number of beneficial purposes including: maintaining electronic components within a controlled temperature range, warming propulsion tanks and mobility actuators, and maintaining liquid propellants above their freezing temperature. Previous missions using Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) dissipated large quantities of waste heat due to the low efficiency of the thermoelectric conversion technology. The next generation RPSs, such as the 110-Watt Stirling Radioisotope Generator (SRG110) will have higher conversion efficiencies, thereby rejecting less waste heat at a lower temperature and may require alternate approaches to transferring waste heat to the spacecraft. RTGs, with efficiencies of ~6 to 7 percent, reject their waste heat at the relatively high heat rejection temperature of 200 C. This is an advantage when rejecting heat to space; however, transferring heat to the internal spacecraft components requires a large and heavy radiator heat exchanger. At the same time, sensitive spacecraft instruments must be shielded from the thermal radiation of the RTG. The SRG110, with an efficiency around 22 percent and 50 C nominal housing surface temperature, can readily transfer the available waste heat directly via heat pipes, thermal straps, or fluid loops. The lower temperatures associated with the SRG110 avoid the chances of overheating other scientific components, eliminating the need for thermal shields. This provides the spacecraft designers more flexibility when locating the generator for a specific mission. A common misconception with high-efficiency systems is that there is not enough waste heat for spacecraft thermal management. This paper will dispel this misconception and investigate the use of a high-efficiency SRG110 for spacecraft thermal management and outline potential methods of waste heat utilization in several conceptual missions (Lunar Rover, Mars Rover, and Titan Lander). The advantages associated with the SRG110 as they relate to ease of assembly, less complex interfaces, and overall mass savings for a spacecraft will be highlighted.

Pantano, David R.↗
NASA NTRS1981

Generic waste management requirements for a controlled ecological life support system /CELSS/

Regenerative life support systems for future space missions will require closure of the waste-food loop. Each mission application will generate specific requirements for the waste management system. However, there are generic input and output requirements that can be identified when a probable scenario is chosen. This paper discusses the generic requirements when higher plants are chosen as the primary food source. Attention is focused on the quality and quantity of nutrients necessary for culturing higher plants. The types of wastes to be processed are also discussed. In addition, requirements generated by growing plants on three different substrates are presented. This work suggests that the mineral composition of waste materials may require minimal adjustment to satisfy the plant requirements.

Hoshizaki, T.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Reduction of the Equivalent System Mass of a Trash Compaction Processing System Designed for Human Spaceflight Waste Management by Improving its Thermal Efficiency

A spacecraft life support system has been under development at NASA called the Trash Compaction Processing System that manages trash generated on human spaceflight missions. The trash composite typically includes components such as plastic pouches that contain wet food and drinks, used cotton clothing such as underwear and T-shirts, exercise clothing, used washcloths, expended deodorant containers, adhesive tapes, plastic bubble wrap, and other sundry items. The system uses compaction in combination with heat to turn the waste composite into a sturdy and well-defined shape, typically called a tile, which maintains structural integrity and makes the most efficient use of storage space. In addition to reducing the volume of the trash, the Trash Compaction Processing System removes water from the trash. The heating and removal of water from the trash renders it safe against microbial activity. This paper primarily focuses on work aimed at reducing the Equivalent System Mass of a Trash Compaction Processing System via a focus on improving the system’s thermal efficiency.

TCPS↗
NASA NTRS2005

Utilizing Radioisotope Power System Waste Heat for Spacecraft Thermal Management

One of the advantages of using a Radioisotope Power System (RPS) for deep space or planetary surface missions is the readily available waste heat, which can be used to maintain electronic components within a controlled temperature range, to warm propulsion tanks and mobility actuators, and to gasify liquid propellants. Previous missions using Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) dissipated a very large quantity of waste heat due to the relatively low efficiency of the thermoelectric conversion technology. The next generation RPSs, such as the 110-watt Stirling Radioisotope Generator (SRG110) will have much higher conversion efficiencies than their predecessors and therefore may require alternate approaches to transferring waste heat to the spacecraft. RTGs, with efficiencies of approx. 6 to 7% and 200 C housing surface temperatures, would need to use large and heavy radiator heat exchangers to transfer the waste heat to the internal spacecraft components. At the same time, sensitive spacecraft instruments must be shielded from the thermal radiation by using the heat exchangers or additional shields. The SRG110, with an efficiency around 22% and 50 C nominal housing surface temperature, can use the available waste heat more efficiently by more direct heat transfer methods such as heat pipes, thermal straps, or fluid loops. The lower temperatures allow the SRG110 much more flexibility to the spacecraft designers in configuring the generator without concern of overheating nearby scientific instruments, thereby eliminating the need for thermal shields. This paper will investigate using a high efficiency SRG110 for spacecraft thermal management and outline potential methods in several conceptual missions (Lunar Rover, Mars Rover, and Titan Lander) to illustrate the advantages with regard to ease of assembly, less complex interfaces, and overall mass savings.

Pantano, David R.↗