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The Life Sciences Glovebox (LSG) is an integrated payload rack for the International Space Station (ISS). The LSG has the work volume within which manipulations of the specimen chambers, specimens, materials, and science equipment (SE) will be conducted. The work volume is designed to contain the particulate and chemical contamination produced by the scientific manipulation conducted inside. The LSG environment control system satisfies the requirements by the combination of physical barriers, negative pressure and usage of inlet and outlet filters. The LSG also has the interfaces with the ISS system, flight crew members and the SE attached to it and it collects and provides scientific data according to the requests by the experiments. The preliminary study of the LSG is conducted. The launch of the LSG is scheduled in September, ‘01. This paper provides an overview of the LSG focused on the LSG environment control design.

To clarify the effect of diesel fuel properties and engine operating conditions on engine exhaust valve sticking in the cold climate, we conducted bench engine tests on 6 sample fuels using a large size construction machine engine. From the results, it becomes clear that the ignition load limits are proportion as to the fuel cetane number and that the composition of discharged tar, generated by misfiring, agrees with a heavier part of fuel distillation region. The conditions under which discharged tar stiffens were also clarified. The intensity of valve sticking has a good correlation with 50% distillation point but does not correlate with cetane number. The heavier distillation fuel caused the valve train failure by the exhaust valve sticking.