Study of the European Research Opportunity for the Facility of Laboratories for Sustainable Habitation (FLaSH)

Abstract

This thesis aims to study the European research opportunity of the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt’s (DLR) Facility of Laboratories for Sustainable Habitation (FLaSH) project. FLaSH’s main goal is to research, develop and test Life Support Systems (LSS) technologies for materially closedloop environments, for space and terrestrial application. The core element of the FLaSH is the Habitation Module Complex (HMC), which integrates 12 interconnected modules, each one of them addressing a LSS’s domain in order to achieve a self-reliant habitat: Air, Water, Waste, Greenhouse, Food, Animal, Living, Sickbay, In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), Workshop and Energy. As a first step, the literature on LSS and the most relevant infrastructures dedicated to LSS development were reviewed. Successively, FLaSH’s preliminary study conducted in 2012 at the DLR’s Concurrent Engineering Facility (CEF) was analysed. The review on the LSS and FLaSH allowed for the identification of 110 candidate technologies. Finally, a survey was carried out on 172 European entities, identified as potential participants, in order to generate primary data for the FLaSH’s research opportunity study. The survey collected a total of 36 valid responses. Survey respondents revealed that 27 entities, from 15 European countries manifested a potential interest in participation and cooperation with FLaSH. The Air, Water, Waste, Greenhouse modules were identified as the most interesting. Participants’ preferred methods of collaboration comprised technology testing and development as well as advisory services. The majority of the participants, 26, backboned FLaSH’s dual approach of developing closed technologies for space and terrestrial applications.