Selection of an Oxygen Regenerating System to Meet the Demands of a Multi-Mission Program

Selecting a specific technique for optimal integration with other functions of an environmental control/life support (EC/LS) system for a multimission spacecraft is a continuing challenge to the systems integrator. The task requires a broad understanding and appreciation of the detail technical aspects of EC/LS processes; the realities of their realizable mechanization and performance; other systems capabilities, interactions, and design selection effects -- both as applied within the EC/LS system and with other spacecraft systems; mission requirements; and the methodologies to relate and evaluate the evolving engineering information against the program goals.

Selection of an oxygen recovery system provides a significant opportunity to illustrate the procedural aspects of the selection problem and the technical aspects of current approaches to, and experience with, oxygen recovery systems. Photographs of equipment systems and examples of calculations and experience data, together with the systems engineering procedural techniques, are drawn from work performed at Convair during recent contractual and company funded programs.