Mobile Test Facility Research Articles

Methodological Approaches to the Design of a Mobile Test Facility Simulating the Outer Space

Abstract The article presents the results of the analysis of methodological approaches to the development of a mobile space simulator test facility following a low-budget project under the conditional name Metamorphosis. The project was performed at the Institute of Aeronautics of Riga Technical University together with Cryogenic and Vacuum Systems Ltd., a company specializing in the development and production of vacuum and cryogenic equipment, with extensive experience in creating technologies used in space research, and development and exploitation of the space environment simulation. The main aim of the study is to find an inexpensive outer space simulator test facility. The study shows that the liquid helium, hydrogen, and neon are significantly more expensive substances than liquid nitrogen, liquid carbon dioxide, liquid ammonia, and organic refrigerants (as well as equipment for their liquefaction). It is desirable to consider a nitrogen system for cooling the workspace due to the physical properties of nitrogen and cheap refrigerants for a projected low-cost simulator test facility. The description of the systems that should be included in the projected mobile space simulator is provided in the article. A generalized scheme of the simulator based on a cryogenic system is also presented.

Microbial Monitoring in the EDEN ISS Greenhouse, a Mobile Test Facility in Antarctica.

The EDEN ISS greenhouse, integrated in two joined containers, is a confined mobile test facility in Antarctica for the development and optimization of new plant cultivation techniques for future space programs. The EDEN ISS greenhouse was used successfully from February to November 2018 for fresh food production for the overwintering crew at the Antarctic Neumayer III station. During the 9 months of operation, samples from the different plants, from the nutrition solution of the aeroponic planting system, and from diverse surfaces within the three different compartments of the container were taken [future exploration greenhouse (FEG), service section (SS), and cold porch (CP)]. Quantity as well as diversity of microorganisms was examined by cultivation. In case of the plant samples, microbial quantities were in a range from 102 to 104 colony forming units per gram plant material. Compared to plants purchased from a German grocery, the produce hosted orders of magnitude more microorganisms than the EDEN ISS plants. The EDEN ISS plant samples contained mainly fungi and a few bacteria. No classical food associated pathogenic microorganism, like Escherichia and Salmonella, could be found. Probably due to the used cultivation approach, Archaea were not found in the samples. The bioburden in the nutrition solutions increased constantly over time but never reached critical values like 102–103 cfu per 100 mL in irrigation water as it is stated, e.g., for commercial European plant productions. The surface samples revealed high differences in the microbial burden between the greenhouse part of the container and the SS and CP part. However, the numbers of organisms (bacteria and fungi) found in the planted greenhouse were still not critical. The microbial loaded surfaces showed strong temporal as well as spatial fluctuations. In samples of the nutrition solution and the surface, the amount of bacteria exceeded the amount of fungi by many times. For identification, 16S rRNA gene sequencing was performed for the isolated prokaryotic organisms. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that the most abundant bacterial phyla were Firmicutes and Actinobacteria. These phyla include plant- and human-associated bacterial species. In general, it could be shown that it is possible to produce edible fresh food in a remote environment and this food is safe for consumption from a microbiological point of view.

Growing fresh food on future space missions: Environmental conditions and crop management.

This paper deals with vegetable cultivation that could be faced in a space mission. This paper focusses on optimization, light, temperature and the harvesting process, while other factors concerning cultivation in space missions, i.e. gravity, radiation, were not addressed. It describes the work done in preparation of the deployment of a mobile test facility for vegetable production of fresh food at the Neumayer III Antarctic research station. A selection of vegetable crops was grown under varying light and temperature conditions to quantify crop yield response to climate factors that determine resource requirement of the production system. Crops were grown at 21 °C or 25 °C under light treatments varying from 200 to 600 μmol m-2 s-1 and simulated the dusk and dawn light spectrum. Fresh food biomass was harvested as spread harvesting (lettuce), before and after regrowth (herbs) and at the end of cultivation. Lettuce and red mustard responded well to increasing light intensities, by 35-90% with increasing light from 200 to 600 μmol m-2 s-1, while the other crops responded more variably. However, the quality of the leafy greens often deteriorated at higher light intensities. The fruit biomass of both determinate tomato and cucumber increased by 8-15% from 300 to 600 μmol m-2 s-1. With the increase in biomass, the number of tomato fruits also increased, while the number of cucumber fruits decreased, resulting in heavier individual fruits. Increasing the temperature had varied effects on production. While in some cases the production increased, regrowth of herbs often lagged behind in the 25 °C treatment. In terms of fresh food production, the most can be expected from lettuce, cucumber, radish, then tomato, although the 2 fruit vegetables require a considerable amount of crop management. Spread harvesting had a large influence on the amount of harvested biomass per unit area. In particular, yield of the 3 lettuce cultivars and spinach was ca. 400% than single harvesting. Increasing plant density and applying spread harvesting increased fresh food production. This information will be the basis for determining crop growth recipes and management to maximize the amount of fresh food available, in view of the constraints of space and energy requirement of such a production system.

A mobile test facility based on a magnetic cumulative generator to study the stability of the power plants under impact of lightning currents

The report presents the results of the development and field testing of a mobile test facility based on a helical magnetic cumulative generator (MCGTF). The system is designed for full-scale modeling of lightning currents to study the safety of power plants of any type, including nuclear power plants. Advanced technologies of high-energy physics for solving both engineering and applied problems underlie this pilot project. The energy from the magnetic cumulative generator (MCG) is transferred to a high-impedance load with high efficiency of more than 50% using pulse transformer coupling. Modeling of the dynamics of the MEG that operates in a circuit with lumped parameters allows one to apply the law of inductance output during operation of the MCG, thus providing the required front of the current pulse in the load without using any switches. The results of field testing of the MCGTF are presented for both the ground loop and the model load. The ground loop generates a load resistance of 2–4 Ω. In the tests, the ohmic resistance of the model load is 10 Ω. It is shown that the current pulse parameters recorded in the resistive-inductive load are close to the calculated values.

Hitachi’s carbon dioxide scrubbing technology with new absorbent for coal fired power plants

Babcock Hitachi has been developing a new amine-based scrubbing technology for capturing carbon dioxide in the flue gas of coal-fired power plants. The development program includes testing of commercial and new combinations of absorbents and additives. More than thirty kinds of amines have been evaluated and characterized by both fundamental tests in the laboratory and slipstream pilot plant tests. The pilot plant tests of the CO2 scrubbing system were conducted at a coal-fired power plant in co-operation with Tokyo Electric Power Company. Two thousand hours of continuous operation was achieved with more than 90% CO2 reduction on average during the entire operation. Energy consumption with the original absorbent blend was much less than that with typical MEA. Since then the CO2 scrubbing system has been further advanced to reduce the energy consumption as well as absorbent degradation drastically by improving the amine-based absorbent in a bench-scale test facility. Pilot tests at Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC), University of North Dakota, were conducted in 2010 and the test results indicated high performance of the improved amine-based absorbent, H3-1. This latest advanced solvent is also scheduled to be demonstrated in a large mobile test facility at several coal-fired power plants in Europe starting 2010. In parallel, conceptual designs of the CO2 scrubbing system for commercial plants up to 800 MWe in size are being developed.

Mobile Test Facility

Mobile Test Facility