Operation-Aware ISHM for Environmental Control and Life Support in Deep Space Habitants

A life support systems’ reliability and survivability are critical to NASA especially in long-term space exploration missions. The Health Management of life support systems consists of several components among which power, water recovery, and biomass processing systems etc. which are of primary importance. Due to the crew’s critical dependence on such a complex system, the health management of life support systems becomes crucial to NASA’s mission success rates. In Phase I, we focus on the WRS system for proof-of-concept of ACM system. In Phase II, the work will be expanded to full scale LSS, including WRS, oxygen, food generation, waste processing, air revitalization, biomass production, etc. This will yield a system model which involves mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, chemical and biological components. We will also leverage existing models, such as BioSim, HabNet, V-HAB . With the LSS model, we will fully mature and develop the ACM system, which integrates data driven modeling, sensor/component failure isolation, hierarchical ACM system, and dynamic case-based reasoning.

The proposed effort has significant range of applications across various NASA multi-disciplinary engineering centers. Quantifying ISHM/FM in terms of standard and recognized metrics has been proven in practice in the Space Launch System, managed by Marshall Space Flight Center. Likewise, other immediate applications of this technology can be used in the operations and launch facilities at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Other potential applications include Glenn Research Center, Ames Research Center, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA must address the long communication delays between Mars and Earth, as well as increasingly more complex systems associated with resilient autonomous spaceflight systems. These systems should be automated, monitored and diagnosed by mission control like any other near-earth mission. The proposed capability will add to the existing portfolio of PHM/SHM by addressing the need for an integrated system capable of considering the mission requirements and potentials for advancement of science in a case-by-case basis. NASA would highly benefit from proposed systems by: 1. Concurrently predicting failures before they disrupt the mission or habitant's safety. 2. Reducing false positives of such prediction and enabling a human-interaction with an intelligent reasoning engine 3. Identifying the remaining useful capability of the system.

Among other agencies, DoD, US Air Force, US Navy, and commercial aviation (e.g., SpaceX, Bieglow Space) are the most likely potential customers for the resulting technologies. In addition, smart home applications or intelligent hospital and patient-care systems can be of secondary application space. This technology would also be useful for disaster planning, e.g. Federal Emergency Management Agency, fire planning, and urban design. Applications such as air traffic control, missile guidance system, space, and range instrument radar systems, etc. also will be pursued by GTC commercialization team. From a commercial perspective, emergency response services, where remote users must quickly share information and collaborate to save lives, a means to instrument that network to assess efficiency and operation would be attractive. The technology developed under this SBIR will also be interest to any organization working on design for resilience (Terminals, highway planning, drug distribution, supply chain planning) interested in validating the effectiveness of different solutions with a focus on quick and effective decisions. Our intent is to pursue an aggressive productization and commercialization strategy to bring the technology into market place.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 6) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

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