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Paragon Space Development Corporation has created the only privately developed and owned Environmental Control and Life Support Systems Human-rating Facility (EHF) for spacecraft ECLSS system testing in a dynamic flight environment. The facility allows for simulating the very stressing dynamic changes in pressure, altitude and operating conditions for human spaceflight, including suborbital and orbital flight profiles as well as Mars and lunar environments. Testing of space suits, pressure suits and ECLS systems can be performed for failure scenarios not able to be duplicated during flight testing. The facility allows for testing of ECLSS hardware before integration with the spacecraft, lowering ECLSS development cost and time, thereby reducing program risk. This paper describes the detailed design and setup of the EHF as well as the various capabilities.

Suborbital flight provides unique design considerations for Environmental Systems. The comparison of an aircraft like flow through system and a spacecraft like closed environmental system is presented. Considerations for safety aspects associated with pressure control and redundancy are also addressed.

The MarsPort competition, sponsored by the Florida and Texas Space Grant Consortiums, was established to elicit student involvement in the manned exploration of Mars. The RedThumb team, comprised of students from the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department at the University of Colorado, designed a greenhouse to be deployed on the Martian surface and meet the requirements put out by the 2002 MarsPort competition. This paper addresses the difficulties of engineering systems to operate in the Martian environment including radiation, micrometeorites, and dust storms. Diet requirements and the selection of crops are also discussed. The final greenhouse system includes seven, unmanned inflatable greenhouse modules called AGPods. There is also a manned facility called PlantHAB where AGPods are maintained and harvested and includes and additional 30 m2 for salad type crops.