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One of the desirable capabilities of an Advanced Life Support System (ALSS) is regeneration of the ingredients required to make palatable and acceptable menu items for crew consumption. This challenging task includes satisfying the nutritional requirements and the taste preferences of the crewmembers, as well as providing efficient food processing equipment in an ALSS. The Food Processing and Nutrition (FP&N) component is one of the sub-models within a top-level model of an ALSS under development at the New Jersey NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training (NJNSCORT). Given a scenario, FP&N sub-model can be utilized to evaluate whether the nutritional needs of crewmembers are being satisfied and what resources are required for food processing. This sub-model is interrelated with three other ALSS sub-models representing the crew, biomass production, and waste processing and resource recovery. For example, the needs of the crew determine the necessary amount of daily nutrition.

The ALS community faces unique challenges for the interactive modeling of a closed life support system. A top-level model is being developed as part of the System Studies and Modeling team of NJ-NSCORT. This top-level model has been broken down into several groups one of which is the ‘Human Requirements’ or ‘Human Factor’apos in an ALSS. This model examines the physical needs of crew members with respect to the effects of varying mission lengths, habitats and specific human characteristics. The model can be investigated independent of and interactive with the top-level model to examine the human factor using an object oriented approach. Through the object oriented programming language, Java, this model is meant to be accessible to the ALS community to aid in system analysis. This paper will explain the structure and examine the utility of the model with known requirements of humans in space.

Metric analysis of research activity and technology development has become one of the deciding factors in whether or not the research of potential technologies receives the needed funding or a technology is incorporated into a system. It is difficult to accurately predict the configuration of an ALS system that will transport humans to the surface of Mars and support surface exploration. Determining which ALS research activities will support this effort is a very discretionary process, and there simply is not enough information to accurately make these types of decisions. Requirements change as research develops, and it is very difficult to create a metric that can accurately assess a potential or ongoing research project. The SSM team of the NJ-NSCORT has developed an internet platform to perform the assessment of potential technologies for the purpose of the development of an ALS system. The platform is called IFA and it has completed validation with current NJ-NSCORT projects.

Accurate, flexible, and dynamic mathematical computer modeling tools are required for the development and parametric evaluation of the various possible Advanced Life Support Systems (ALSS) configurations. Such models are expected to take a top-level approach to maximize modularity, flexibility in development, and user/developer friendliness. Two approaches are taken for modeling the WPRR component of an ALSS: an object oriented approach coded in Java and a SIMULINK model. Each model exhibits distinct properties for the interchange of technologies, startup requirements, and hardware/software requirements, but are anticipated to provide successful ALSS models.

As ALS goals branch out to extended missions to the moon and Mars, concurrent science and engineering projects take center stage in the development of new ALS technology. It is necessary to optimize the interdisciplinary research activities in order to ensure ALS research goals are met in a timely manner, and to guarantee the reliability of future long term missions. The SSM team of the NJ-NSCORT has developed an internet software platform capable of performing a systems level analysis of the ALS research activity. The information produced by the analysis can assist ALS researchers in the streamlining of research activity.

The New Jersey NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training (NJ-NSCORT) for Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLSS) was established at Rutgers University, with participation from Stevens Institute of Technology, in May 1996. Four research teams including Biomass Production, Food Processing and Nutrition, Waste Processing, and Systems Studies and Modeling were assembled to study issues related to human life support associated with long duration space missions. Each team is conducting a number of projects that address specific problems to the design of BLSS. The current tasks of the Systems Studies and Modeling (SSM) team are: to establish communications among NJ-NSCORT research teams, to develop system analysis methodologies, to develop hybrid fundamental/empirical models for individual subsystems of a BLSS, and to develop functional modules to manipulate information related to BLSS.

In order to improve the efficiency of concurrent science and engineering projects, efforts are being made on the object oriented analysis (OOA) of the NJ-NSCORT projects. With the use of information flow models a compatibility/completeness analysis, defined herein, can be performed in order to answer systems level project interaction questions. One obsticle has been the collection and subsequent processing of pertinent project information. Currently a software package is under development which will automate the analysis of the NJ-NSCORT project in real time basis utilizing the internet. In its final form it will offer the users up to the minute analysis of the efficiency and status of the concurrent science and engineering effort. Successful implementation og this analysis on an interactive website will facilitate the expansion of its usage beyond NJ-NSCORT.