Compact, Lightweight Adsorber and Sabatier Reactor for CO2 Capture and Reduction for Consumable and Propellant Production
The utilization of CO2 to produce (or recycle) life support consumables, such as O2 and H2O, and to generate propellant fuels is an important aspect of NASA’s concept for future, long duration planetary exploration. One potential approach is to capture and use CO2 from the Martian atmosphere to generate the consumables and propellant fuels. Precision Combustion, Inc. (PCI), with support from NASA, continues to develop its regenerable adsorber technology for capturing CO2 from gaseous atmospheres (for cabin atmosphere revitalization and in-situ resource utilization applications) and its Sabatier reactor for converting CO2 to methane and water. Both technologies are based on PCI’s Microlith ® substrates and have been demonstrated to reduce size, weight, and power consumption during CO2 capture and methanation process. For adsorber applications, the Microlith substrates offer a unique resistive heating capability that shows potential for short regeneration time and reduced power requirements compared to conventional systems. For the Sabatier applications, the combination of the Microlith substrates and durable catalyst coating permits efficient CO2 methanation that favors high reactant conversion, high selectivity, and durability. Results from performance testing at various operating conditions will be presented. An effort to optimize the Sabatier reactor and to develop a bench-top Sabatier Development Unit (SDU) will be discussed. Nomenclature
Towards Earth independence - tradespace exploration of long-duration crewed Mars surface system architectures
In recent years, an unprecedented level of interest
has grown around the prospect of sending humans to Mars for the
exploration and eventual settlement of that planet. With the
signing of the 2010 NASA Authorization Act, this goal became the
official policy of the United States and consequently, has become
the long-term objective of NASA's human spaceflight activities. A
review of past Mars mission planning efforts, however, reveals that
while numerous analyses have studied the challenges of transporting
people to the red planet, relatively little analyses have been
performed in characterizing the challenges of sustaining humans
upon arrival. In light of this observation, this thesis develops
HabNet - an integrated Habitation, Environmental Control and Life
Support (ECLS), In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), and
Supportability analysis framework - and applies it to three
different Mars mission scenarios to analyze the impacts of
different system architectures on the costs of deploying and
sustaining a continuous human presence on the surface of Mars.
Through these case studies, a number of new insights on the
mass-optimality of Mars surface system architectures are derived.
The most significant of these is the finding that ECLS architecture
mass-optimality is strongly dependent on the cost of ISRU - where
open-loop ECLS architectures become mass-optimal when the cost of
ISRU is low, and ECLS architectures with higher levels of resource
recycling become mass-optimal when the cost of ISRU is high. For
the Martian surface, the relative abundance of resources equates to
a low cost of ISRU, which results in an open-loop ECLS system
supplemented with ISRU becoming an attractive, if not dominant
surface system architecture, over a range of mission scenarios and
ISRU performance levels. This result, along with the others made in
this thesis, demonstrates the large potential of integrated system
analyses in uncovering previously unseen trends within the Mars
mission architecture tradespace. By integrating multiple
traditionally disparate spaceflight disciplines into a unified
analysis framework, this thesis attempts to make the first steps
towards codifying the human spaceflight mission architecting
process, with the ultimate goal of enabling the efficient
evaluation of the architectural decisions that will shape
humanity's expansion into the cosmos.
An Optimization Approach to Occupant Safety and Fuel Economy in Vehicle Design
1. Abstract A major challenge in automotive design is the creation of safe vehicles with minimal environmental impact. This study presents a modeling framework for evaluating and optimizing body designs for improved occupant safety and fuel efficiency. Vehicle body mass is considered as the main link between safety and sustainability. The modeling framework includes frontal crash energy absorption, restraint system design and fuel economy. Preliminary results indicate a Pareto-optimal curve between safety and sustainability may exist when other factors are not taken into account. A more complete modeling framework that includes more sophisticated sustainability and safety metrics, cost and other market considerations, is suggested in order to support better design and regulatory decisions. 2. Keywords: Automotive body structures, fuel economy, occupant safety, optimal vehicle design, restraint systems