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MELiSSA is a micro-organism based ecosystem conceived as a tool for understanding the behaviour of artificial ecosystems and developing the technology for a future biological life support system for long term manned space missions. The driving element of MELiSSA is the recovering of oxygen and edible biomass from waste generated by the crew (CO2, faeces, urea). MELISSA is composed of four microbial compartments. A fifth compartment, a higher plant chamber (HPC), working in parallel with the Spirulina compartment was associated to the MELiSSA loop in order to improve the diet quality for the crew.

The MELiSSA (Microbial Ecological Life Support System Alternative) project was designed as an early model of a future artificial ecosystem for long-term space missions. It centres on the recovery of edible biomass from waste, CO2 and minerals, with direct use of light as a source of energy for photosynthesis. MELiSSA is composed of four axenic compartments colonized by microorganisms, and a fifth compartment formed by the crew on board the craft. Simulation of the entire MELiSSA loop had been performed to obtain mass fluxes and concentrations of microorganisms, and liquid and gas components in all the system streams. This first approach helped to define the process conditions necessary to obtain complete recycling of nitrogen or regeneration of the atmosphere. This paper reports on the simulation of the behaviour of the loop when the photosynthetic compartment is working under various light-limiting conditions.