(L to R): Expedition 70 Crew: Satoshi Furukawa (JAXA), Loral O'Hara (NASA), Andreas Mogensen (ESA), and Jasmin Moghbeli (NASA); Mike West; Stephen Koemer, JSC Deputy Director; Judson Frieling, Expedition 70 Lead Flight Director; Richard LaBrode, Expedition 70 Lead Flight Director; Fiona Antkowiak, Expedition 70 Lead Flight Director; and Hubert Brasseaux, Expedition 70 Lead Increment Manager.
Mike West, a NASA System Lead for the SpaceX Crew Dragon Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) for the JETS II contract, was honored by NASA with the JSC Group Achievement Award for technical expertise to execute the fancier gas transfer demonstration which led to valuable on-orbit insight into system behavior.
Mike accepted the award on behalf of his teammates during the Expedition 70 Crew Debrief and Awards Ceremony on May 16, 2024.
ECLSS is one of the key systems required for human spaceflight; in a broad sense, the purpose of the ECLSS is to maintain a habitable environment for the crew within the pressurized cabin.
Human metabolism consumes oxygen while producing carbon dioxide, water vapor, and waste. The ECLSS has to replenish consumed oxygen, scrub carbon dioxide, and remove water vapor. It also regulates the atmospheric pressure of the cabin throughout all nominal phases of flight and during contingencies it protects the crew in emergency situations, including: Fire response and toxic atmosphere, cabin depressurization, ISS Safe Haven and evacuation capability, injured/sick crew, and contingency landing scenarios with delayed rescue.
When a spacecraft undocks from the ISS, after the hatches are closed, the interstitial volume between the ISS and Spacecraft hatches is vented overboard. There is a formal ISS requirement for all visiting vehicles that this lost volume of air must be replenished.
“So every mission we perform a make-up gas transfer to ISS, using nitrox (a mixture of 23% oxy-gen and 77% nitrogen) from the vehicle ECLSS tanks,” said Mike. “The Crew-7 fancier make-up gas transfer was performed with an alternate configuration using a novel transfer procedure sequence. The data collected from this test is being used to better characterize system hardware performance and improve modeling of microgravity fluid flow in the ECLSS.
“The award is very much a team award for the planning, technical risk assessment, support, and execution of the on-orbit test.”
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