General plans for testing of a regenerative ECLS system in a Module Simulator at MSFC have been been discussed in a previous paper; preliminary test results are given in this paper and a companion by Mr. McAlister. Subsystems for this series of tests have been provided by Life Systems, Inc., AiResearch Manufacturing Co., Umpqua Research Company, Lockheed, and Hamilton Standard. Results of testing those subsystems provided by Hamilton Standard are covered in the other paper.
Subsystems have been installed in the Module Simulator in accordance with the test plan. These include the 4-bed Molecular Sieve, the Static Feed Water Electrolysis Subsystem, and the Urine Pretreatment/Mixing Unit to be covered herein. These subsystems, together with the TIMES and Sabatier Reactor covered elsewhere, have gone through Independent Subsystem Tests in the Module Simulator and will undergo Simplified Integrated Tests, in which all subsystems are operated simultaneously and closed chamber tests, in which mass and thermal balance data of the regenerative system will be obtained.
Upon conclusion of this series of tests, alternative subsystems will be installed in the Module Simulator. Those planned for this configuration include the Bosch CO2 Reduction Subsystem and the Vapor Compression-Distillation Subsystem to be covered in this paper. Although individual subsystem data is available, no integrated system testing has, as yet, been done in this configuration.
This paper describes these subsystems and presents the results of testing to date. The plans for future tests are al so discussed.