Human Exploration Beyond Low Earth Orbit: Staged Evolution of BLiSS Technologies

Abstract

Bioregenerative Life Support Systems (BLiSS) provide sustainable life support to human crews living in lunar and Martian surface habitats. BLiSS architectures are complex and will need to evolve in stages of maturity as more inhabitants are deployed to surface habitats. In the regenerative Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) currently used on ISS with 4-6 inhabitants, air, food, and water are supplied from Earth, waste is stored and returned to Earth, and only air along with a portion of water are recycled onboard. Thus, such a regenerative ECLSS architecture supports short duration (30-day) missions and represents an initial or ‘survival stage’ of life support that requires frequent resupply and is not economically or technically viable for long-duration missions. To meet the objectives of NASA’s Moon-to-Mars (M2M) Architecture, the development of a four-stage BLiSS architecture was designed and proposed. A second ‘intermediate stage’ still relies on food resupply but regenerates air, water, and recycles waste. This stage utilizes dedicated, self-sustaining bioreactors to process urine, hygiene/laundry water, metabolic waste slurries (i.e., feces, food waste), and trash to produce potable water and recover essential resources (e.g., fertilizer, CH₄, CO₂, and N₂). A third, ‘sustainability stage’ utilizes recycled water and nutrients to produce a major portion of the habitat food supply using plants, which provide O₂, removes CO₂, and performs additional water purification. Finally, a fourth, ‘mature stage’ uses recycled feedstocks from BLiSS (i.e., nutrients, water, CH₄, CO₂, etc.) and additional dedicated bioreactor systems to support in situ biomanufacturing of value-added products (e.g., fuel, proteins, medicines, construction materials).