Life Support Systems for lunar missions

• Published in: Advances in space research 1996, Vol.18 (11), p.103-110
• Main Author: Tamponnet, C.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0273-1177; 1879-1948
• DOI: 10.1016/0273-1177(96)00096-8

Future Lunar missions envision three successive scenarios: (i) robotic preparatory missions, (ii) Lunar outpost (man-tended), and (iii) a permanently inhabited Lunar base. As soon as man appears as a key element (i.e. the second and third scenario), development and building of adequate Life Support Systems (LSS) become mandatory. Life Support covers basically all the techniques that enable the crew of the Lunar outpost or base to survive in this hostile environment. The internal structures of these LSS are highly dependent upon the type of missions. Indeed, there are three non-exclusive ways to ensure the autonomy of man on the Moon: (i) provide all the required consumables (oxygen, water, food) at the start of the mission or replenish them during the mission, (ii) regenerate these consumables from waste during the mission, or (iii) use Lunar resources. Man-tended Lunar missions will require Shuttle-like or International Space Station-like types of LSS although continuously inhabited Lunar bases will require an autonomous (i.e. totally regenerative) type of LSS. Therefore, first manned Lunar missions will use non-regenerative LSS. These LSS will progressively evolve towards a total regeneration of materials using in a first step purely physico-chemical technologies, then using more and more biologically-based technologies and relying more and more on Lunar resources. Moreover, first Lunar outposts and Lunar bases will serve as testbed for the development of the LSS of respectively the future Lunar bases and the future Mars (or other planetary) bases.