Waste Water Characterization for the ISS Water Processor

The ISS Water Processor is designed to recover approximately 110 pounds of water each day from various waste streams generated on the ISS. Characterization of the chemical and microbial contaminants in these waste streams is required to design the Water Processor to effectively treat the water to potable requirements. The ISS waste streams treated by the Water Processor include waste shower and handwash, urine distillate, waste from oral hygiene and wet shaves, crew latent, and animal latent from the Research Animal Holding Facility. Since 1990, data has been accumulated on the constituency of each of these waste streams to aid in the development and design of the Water Processor. Data sources primarily include laboratory analyses of waste streams generated in ground testing at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) test bed, condensate generated on the Space Shuttle and Spacelab missions, and condensate collected in the Spacelab SLS-2 RAHF Experiment. This paper documents the effort to compile the data from the various sources and derive a database that identifies the constituents in the ISS waste streams and their respective concentrations.