Designing Next-Generation Carbon Dioxide Removal Technology for Better Life in Space

The International Space Station (ISS) is made livable in great part thanks to a system that captures and removes CO2 from the air. The workhorse inside that system is a compressor, which fulfills its CO2-capture duties, but at a cost: It is noisy and requires frequent maintenance. Engineers at NASA used modeling and simulation with experimental testing to analyze the next generation of compressor designs that get the job done more quietly, with fewer maintenance needs, and at lower fabrication cost.