Design and establishment of a large-scale controlled ecological life-support system integrated experimental platform.

ABSTRACT

A Controlled Ecological Life-Support System (CELSS) can meet the demands of food, oxygen, and water for human, as well as providing psychological benefits during deep space exploration by the continuous materials regeneration. Many key techniques of the platform are needed to explore before applying to the extraterrestrial planets. In this study, a large-scale CELSS integrated experimental platform was designed and constructed to meet the basic life-support material demands of six crew members (max). The platform was composed of four kinds of cabins including Crew Cabin (CC), Plant Cabin (PC), Life-Support Cabin (LSC), Resource Recycling Cabin (RRC) and affiliated facilities. Eight cabins were involved in the platform, i.e., CCs I and II, PCs I, II, III and IV, LSC, and RRC. The platform involved 15 subsystems and covered a plant culture area of 206.6 m2 (a max extensible area of 260 m2) and a total volume of 1340 m3. The joint debuggings and the 4-subject 180-day CELSS integration experiment were carried out successfully. The material closures were 55% (on average) for food (70.8% in highly efficient production period), 100% for atmospheric regeneration, 100% for water regeneration, and 87.7% for recycled solid waste in the 4-subject 180-day integration experiment. It verified that the indicators of the platform meet the technical requirements and realize food regeneration, air regeneration and water regeneration through the integration of physico-chemical technique and biological technique for the long-term survivals of six crew members in the closed cabins.