Many research activities relating the environment control and life support systems to be used in space have been conducted and continued in Japan since 1982 in order to obtain his own manned flight technologies for future Japanese missions.
Research and development activities are able to be divided in two phases according mission scheduling such as JEM development to be used in International Space Station now going on and the future Japanese space infrastructures, for examples, Japanese Space Station and Lunar Base.
Temperature, humidity, total atmospheric pressure and partial pressure of oxygen and carbon dioxide, necessary for all living things, are to be controlled by the environment control function. This function can be performed by technologies already developed and used as the Environment Control Life Support System (ECLSS) of Space Shuttle, and the new oxygen recovering technology from carbon dioxide in now going to be developed for more long duration stay in International Space Station.
All life support functions such as oxygen and purified water supplies and heat, carbon dioxide and used water eliminations in JEM are to be fullfilled in the American module outside of JEM in normal operation phase, however if emergency case occured, least self sufficient life support function should be performed inside of JEM. Therefore air conditioning and carbon dioxide elimination systems are now going to be developed in NASDA as shown in Fig. 1.
On the other hand, more advanced life support system technologies such as closed ecological life support system have now investigated in various organizations under the guide line of CELSS Research Society, Japan.
The status of the over all activities are discussed in this paper.
View full abstract