NASA Life Sciences Advanced Refrigerator/Freezer Technology Assessment Results

The NASA Lewis Research Center, through contract with Oceaneering Space Systems, is engaged in a project to develop advanced refrigerator/freezer (R/F) technologies for future Life and Biomedical Sciences space flight missions.

The first phase of the project, a technology assessment recently has been completed to identify the advanced refrigerator/freezer technologies needed and best suited to meet the requirements for the five R/F classifications specified by the researchers, to rank those technologies based on benefit and risk, and to recommend those which can be developed within this project. This paper presents the basis, the methodology, and results of the R/F technology assessment, and makes recommendations for the technology areas to be developed.