Space exploration and life support systems engineering.
Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) and plant physiology research.
Background:
The NASA Advanced Life Support Flight Program aims to develop robust life support systems for space missions.
Controlled Ecological Life Support Systems (CELSS) are crucial for long-duration spaceflight, requiring extensive ground-based testing.
Previous research highlighted the need for a controlled testbed to evaluate plant growth and system requirements for space applications.
Purpose of the Study:
To report on the initial closed operational testing of the Controlled Ecological Life Support System (CELSS) Test Facility Engineering Development Unit (EDU).
To assess the hardware performance capabilities of the EDU against specified functional requirements.
To evaluate the EDU's utility for determining subsystem and system requirements for a flight unit and for studying plant crop productivity and physiology.
Main Methods:
Construction and initial closed operational testing of the Engineering Development Unit (EDU) at NASA Ames Research Center.
Monitoring and data collection during a 28-day closed operation period.
Comparison of measured performance data with specified functional requirements and presentation of crop growth parameter inference.
Main Results:
The EDU successfully completed initial closed operational testing, demonstrating its capability as a controlled environment for plant growth.
Hardware performance data collected during the 28-day test period were compared against specified functional requirements.
An example was presented illustrating the inference of crop growth parameters from the collected test data.
Conclusions:
The Engineering Development Unit (EDU) is a functional and valuable testbed for advancing Controlled Ecological Life Support Systems (CELSS) technology.
The EDU provides essential engineering data for the development of flight-ready life support systems.
Future science and technology testing within the EDU will further enhance understanding of plant productivity and physiology in controlled environments for space exploration.
