Trade Study Comparing Specimen Chamber Servicing Methods for the Space Station Centrifuge Facility

The Specimen Chamber Service Unit, a component of the Space Station Centrifuge Facility, must provide a clean enclosure on a continuing basis for the Facility's plant, rodent and primate specimens. In the Centrifuge Facility, animal and plant specimens reside in enclosures called Specimen Chambers which fit inside larger, self-contained Habitat modules. The Specimen Chambers will become soiled and will require periodic servicing to maintain a clean environment for the specimens. Two methods of servicing the Specimen Chambers have thus far been proposed: washing the Chambers with an on-board washer, or disposing of the soiled Chambers and replacing them with clean ones. The choice of servicing method involves a large and complex set of issues. This paper addresses many of these issues by developing several servicing options, using either cleaning or replacement as the method of providing clean Specimen Chambers, and then evaluating each option according to a set of established quantitative and qualitative criteria. Through this process, the authors concluded that disposing and replacing the Specimen Chambers is preferable to washing them.