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CC21 Waste to Base Materials Challenge: Sustainable Reprocessing in Space
Completed
Description
A new mission architecture that addresses sustainability as a core principle will naturally lead to the question of what to do with all the trash and waste that is generated during a mission to Mars? The answer to dealing with all this ?dead mass? is to reprocess waste into useful products, such as replacement parts, structures, shielding, and propellant thereby reducing the initial launch mass and thus saving tens of billions of dollars in launch costs.
Imagine you are on a mission to Mars. The journey to Mars and back is going to take two to three years, and there may not be any supply ships. To be as efficient and self-sufficient as possible, you will need to be able to recycle, repurpose, or reprocess things and make what you need from base materials. A completely efficient cycle is almost impossible, and some waste will have to be jettisoned to reduce mass and free up space inside the spacecraft. But ideally, you will have little to almost no waste since everything gets broken down and remade into new things. There are a lot of different kinds of waste on a spacecraft. What are the different ways that those useless waste streams can be repurposed?
Benefits
22 concepts related to reusing typical waste aboard a spacecraft were acquired and relationships with the engineers, innovators, and designers who submitted them were established. Many of these ideas can be taken to the next level and explored or developed by NASA, while others will continue to be developed by those in the public sphere. Furthermore, a white paper written by a NASA retiree was submitted in conjunction with the challenge conclusion. This white paper summarized and analyzed the results of the challenge, sharing potential insights, next steps, and complementarities among the entries.
Significantly Advanced Towards a Solution
Planned for future implementation
Technical Solution
Details
| Technology area | Exploration Destination Systems > Mission Infrastructure, Sustainability, and Supportability > In Situ Manufacturing, Maintenance, and Repair |
| Program | Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing (PCC) |
| Lead organization | Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA |
| Start date | 2021-10-29 |
| End date | 2022-07-08 |
Project contacts
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How to get involved
This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.
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