Development of an Environmental Control an Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) for the Next Generation European Human-rated Spacecraft

Abstract

With Europe being a step behind in the development of crew space exploration capabilities, compared to other nations, it has to be investigated how it would be possible to catch up technologically. An option could be the use of a modular ECLSS, which can be adapted to different mission profiles, to enable missions to LEO, to the Moon and even beyond. With a modular ECLSS only one system needs to be developed with minimal adaptations for multiple purposes, compared to a non-modular system, which is dedicated to only one purpose. The modular approach could save development time and cost. A modular ECLSS concept is developed to investigate this assumption. To obtain the system concept a variety of technological building blocks are considered and a modular ECLSS architecture is defined. The technologies are then assigned to the architecture. For sizing of the concept the potential market for space exploration vehicles is investigated to define system configurations. The ECLSS is then sized in modular way to meet the requirements imposed by the different configurations. The modular concept design shows that a mass and volume penalty has to be taken compared to a non-modular ECLSS. However, many commonalities between the configurations have been identified, which leads to minimal adaptations to the modular ECLSS for different missions scenarios. This shows that a modular ECLSS has a reduced development effort for a variety of mission configurations and destinations, namely LEO, Moon and beyond. It is considered advantageous to utilize this modular approach in the ECLSS development.