Mars Habitat Air Revitalization Technology Survey
Future missions to Mars will require long duration operation of Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) technologies in deep space without resupply from Earth. Development of an integrated ECLSS for this application thus necessitates a redesign of traditional life support approaches used for low Earth orbit and Lunar expeditions. Closing the loop to reduce consumables and recapture valuable resources is a much higher priority. Additionally, reliability and maintainability become much larger considerations for long-term human space flight due to the complexity and impracticality of regular or emergency resupply. To facilitate the down-selection of suitable technologies for the next-generation ECLSS, a survey of historical and newly developed systems for habitat air revitalization was carried out. This paper summarizes technology options to be considered for air revitalization subsystems including carbon dioxide removal and reduction, oxygen generation, nitrogen resupply, trace contaminant control and particulate filtration, and Mars atmospheric processing. Basic functionalities and operational details of each technology are outlined, along with considerations concerning their feasibility for deep space exploration. Up-to-date sizing and performance data is also provided where available.