A new water-dispensing system on the International Space Station (ISS) aims to test out technology that could help future astronauts explore the Moon. The roomy ISS is described by NASA officials as being larger than a six-bedroom house. Astronauts flying to the Moon in the coming decade with NASA’s Artemis program will not have nearly as much room in the Orion spacecraft, in lunar landing vehicles or in NASA’s smaller Gateway space station planned for lunar orbit.
Everything will need to shrink for Artemis lunar work, including food preparation stations, exercise equipment and medical kits. Towards this end, a new potable water dispenser built by the company Leidos flew to space aboard Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft on 1 August as part upgrade, part lunar technology demonstration. A previous generation of US water dispensers was delivered to the ISS in 2008 and remains functional.
The new design “tackled some of the more significant Artemis mission challenges, including longer duration water stagnation periods and reducing limited life items,” said Deborah Wells, division manager at Leidos. Leidos works in fields including civil, defence, health and intelligence; in the field of space exploration, the company says it has been working for 50 years in information technology, engineering and science.
With the addition of the new dispenser, ISS astronauts now have at least three locations where they can find drinkable water: in the Russian Zvezda module, in the US Unity node and now in the US Destiny module.
There are numerous upgrades from previous generations of water dispensers, Wells emphasised. The heater portion has less power draw due to better optimisation for water heating needs. The system can also send back telemetry to Mission Control, where ground personnel can tweak the settings if needed, reducing astronaut maintenance time in space. Both features will be essential on Moon missions, where power and time will be more limited.
The system is also designed to remove ‘biocide’ – a treatment that addresses microbes – in the water, and to disinfect water using ultraviolet rays. Both treatments are especially important, as the dispenser hooks into NASA’s urine-recycling system. Very simply put, NASA’s Environmental Control and Life Support System aboard the ISS uses a urine processor assembly. The assembly safely recovers drinkable water from urine using vacuum distillation, and recently achieved a
