Operational Engineering of the COLUMBUS Thermal and Environmental Control System: Achievements, Optimizations

Abstract

After commissioning of the European space-borne science laboratory Columbus, many operational products had to be improved and adapted to changing environmental conditions and new operational experiences. In this paper, we focus on the operational engineering of the Thermal Control as well as on the Environmental Control and Live Support System which are mainly influenced by crew activities, payloads and systems. We present an anomaly handling process how to overcome unexpected anomalies or system change requests. We apply this approach to two dedicated examples for which operational workarounds, a final recovery procedure and even a new operations concept had to be developed: (1) The introduction of a so-called Low Condensing Mode for the condensate heat exchanger due to changing station wide requirements and (2) impacts of unexpected smoke detector contamination. With the help of telemetry data, we explain workaround, final solution and operations concept development. We conclude how to change the Columbus air-conditioning and thermal control design to improve humidity control, condensate collection and smoke detector performance and give recommendations for the air-conditioning and smoke detector design of future human space flight missions.