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Pretreatment of urine using Oxone® and sulfuric acid is baselined in the International Space Station (ISS) waste water reclamation system to control odors, fix Ammonia and control microbial growth. In addition, pretreatment is recommended for long term flight use of urine collection and two phase separation to reduce or eliminate fouling of the associated hardware and plumbing with urine precipitates. This is important to the ISS application because the amount of maintenance time for cleaning and repairing hardware must be minimized. This paper describes the development of a chemical pretreatment system based on solid tablet shapes which are positioned in the inlet urine collection hose and are dissolved by the entrained urine at the proper ratio of pretreatment to urine. Building upon the prior success of the developed and tested solid Oxone tablet, a trade study and tests were completed to confirm if a similar approach would be appropriate for the sulfuric acid injection method.

NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is developing a Urine Processor Assembly (UPA) for the International Space Station (ISS). The UPA uses Vapor Compression Distillation (VCD) technology to reclaim water from pre-treated urine. This water is further processed by the Water Processor Assembly (WPA) to potable quality standards for use on the ISS. NASA has developed this technology over the last 25-30 years. Over this history, many technical issues were solved with thousands of hours of ground testing that demonstrate the ability of the UPA technology to reclaim water from urine. In recent years, NASA MSFC has been responsible for taking the UPA technology to “flight design” maturity. This paper will give a brief overview of the UPA design and a status of the major design and development efforts completed recently to mature the UPA to a flight level.

The Russian space program has maintained crews on long duration space flights nearly continuously over the past two decades. As a result, a strong emphasis has been placed on the development of regenerative life support systems. One of these systems is a urine processor which has been operating on-orbit since 1990. The U. S has also been developing urine processing systems to reclaim water from urine over the past twenty years. This paper will describe the two different technologies used for urine processing for long-term human presence in space and will compare the operating characteristics of the two systems.

Pretreatment of urine is required in space station waste water recovery systems to control odors, fix urea, and control microbial growth. Also, recent testing and experience on the shuttle orbiter waste water plumbing has discovered that pretreatment is required for long term use of urine separator hardware to reduce or eliminate fouling of the hardware and plumbing with urine precipitates. This is important for international Space Station (ISS) application because the amount of maintenance time for cleaning and repairing hardware must be minimized. This paper describes the development and initial testing of a pretreatment method produced by a trade study which looked at several different pretreatment methods. The tests used hardware previously flown as a Design Test Objective (DTO) experiment on the Orbiter.

A test has been completed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) to evaluate the latest Water Recovery and Management (WRM) system and Waste Management (WM) urinal design for the United States On-Orbit Segment (USOS) of the International Space Station (ISS) with higher fidelity hardware and integration than has been achieved in previous integrated tests. Potable and urine reclamation processors were integrated with waste water generation equipment and successfully operated for a total of 116 days to evaluate the impacts of changes made as a result of the redesign from Space Station Freedom (SSF) to the ISS. This testing marked the first occasion in which the WRM was automated at the system level, allowing for evaluation of the hardware performance under ISS operating conditions. It was also the first time a “flight-like” Process Control Water Quality Monitor (PCWQM) and a WM urinal were tested in an integrated system.

The Vapor Compression Distillation Flight Experiment (VCD-FE) was an International Space Station (ISS) Risk Mitigation Experiment launched within the SPACEHAB module aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia during the STS-107 mission. The experiment was intended to investigate the microgravity sensitivity of a VCD-based Urine Processor Assembly (UPA). The VCD-FE was a full-scale developmental version of the Space Station UPA and was designed to test some of the potential micro-gravity issues with the design and to establish the readiness of VCD technology for use in the ISS UPA application prior to the permanent deployment of the UPA to the ISS. This paper summarizes the experiment results.

Vapor Compression Distillation (VCD) is the chosen technology for urine processing aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Development and life testing over the past several years have brought to the forefront problems and solutions for the VCD technology. Testing between 1992 and 1998 has been instrumental in developing estimates of hardware life and reliability. It has also helped improve the hardware design in ways that either correct existing problems or enhance the existing design of the hardware. The testing has increased the confidence in the VCD technology and reduced technical and programmatic risks. This paper summarizes the test results and changes that have been made to the VCD design.