ANITA and ANITA II Optimised Analysers for Advanced Air Quality Monitoring in Crewed Space Craft

This paper reports on the flight experiment ANITA (Analysing Interferometer for Ambient Air) and the development status of ANITA II. ANITA represents a precursor for ANITA II, a permanent continuous trace gas monitoring system on the International Space Station (ISS). For crew's safety the air analysers can detect and quantify quasi on-line and simultaneously 32 trace gases with ppm or sub-ppm detection limits. Thus, a crewed cabin air monitor is designed allowing the detection and monitoring of trace gas dynamics of a spacecraft atmosphere providing besides the continuous air monitoring activities, warning capability in case of malfunctions.

ANITA will be accommodated in an Express Rack on US LAB Destiny. The transportation to ISS will be provided by Jules Verne, the first flight of the Automatic Transfer Vehicle (ATV) scheduled for May 2005. The more compact and improved measurement unit ANITA II is being designed for continuous air monitoring on ISS.