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The Columbus Orbital Facility (COF) is being built as the European contribution to the International Space Station (ISS) Programme. The ECLS subsystem is developed by Daimler-Benz Aerospace/Dornier under a contract from Alenia Aerospazio. This paper will survey the design and development status of the COF ECLS subsystem and the associated equipment up to March '98. The development test status for the critical areas and new technologies will be summarised herein.

The European Space Agency (ESA) recently has concluded a feasibility study for the European Crew Transfer Vehicle (CTV) to become operational for the first manned transfer flight to the International Space Station Alpha (ISSA) by 2005. The CTV, to be launched by Ariane 5, shall provide life support functions for a crew of four astronauts and about 100 hours autonomous flight duration. These life support functions comprise in particular atmosphere supply & pressure control, air conditioning, liquid management, and fire detection & suppression. The purpose of this paper is to identify the CTV requirements and to describe the capsule inherent design drivers. Furthermore the present design status of the CTV ECLSS is summarised herein. Optional design solutions are proposed, facilitating the reduction of design complexity, volumes and mass.

One of the most important driving factors in space suit design rests upon the packaging of life support and electrical components within the compartments of a space suit system. The volume and mass of space suits are restricted due to payload constraints, volume constraints inside the airlock, limited hatch diameter, and general bulkiness of the mini spacecraft ‘space-suit’. The need for a higher packaging density becomes even more important with the implementation of failure tolerance principles, like redundant components, or design for minimum risk. Special attention has to be paid to the heat balance of motors, pumps, heat exchangers, converters, etc. so as to avoid heat accummulation as well as heat sinks inside the backpack or the suit enclosure. However, from a maintenance point of view, packaging has a certain upper limit in terms of reachability and replaceability of failed or to be maintained components.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has recently-launched a development program for an autonomous European EVA Space Suit System to become operational for the first manned. Hermes flight in 1999. After the accomplishment of feasibility studies and the establishment of the first technical reference baseline definition, the goal of the ongoing design and development phase is to verify all critical technologies on breadboard-level and to refine and freeze the design of the entire EVA Space Suit System for the main development phase. The purpose of this paper is to provide information about the development status of the European EVA Space Suit System (ESSS) by introducing the current technical reference baseline and describing the development activities planned until end of 1990.

This paper provides a description of the current European Space Suit System (ESSS) status. The ESSS is foreseen for servicing of various elements of space infrastructure within typical operational scenarios based on Hermes. As a result of different EVA studies the ESSS concept has been defined and structured in three modules: the EVA Suit Enclosure Module (ESEM), the EVA Life Support Module (ELSM), and the EVA Information and Communication Module (EICM). The main portion of the description herein is provided for the ELSM, since this module has been studied in more detail up to now (ESA contract) in comparison with the ESEM and the EICM.

A new project has been established in the European Space Scenario namely the build up of a European EVA capability, based on both the request for European autonomy and the realization that EVA is a part of manned spaceflight. As a major element of EVA Systems, a medium pressure hybrid suit is proposed allowing a prebreathing-free transition from the Hermes cabin (700 hPa) into the suit. Development risk factors seems to be medium - with the exception of some critical items - so that a basic European EVA capability might be available for the first Hermes flight on 1996.