The International Space Station has a 98% water restoration rate, which is a tremendous accomplishment and has enormous promise for future missions. This water recovery rate was made possible by a device that turns astronauts’ urine and sweat into drinkable water. On the ISS, each crew member uses about a gallon of water daily for various functions. The Environment Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) subsystems were used to make the accomplishment possible.
ECLSS is a combination of hardware that includes a Water Recovery System
According to NASA, ECLSS is a combination of hardware that includes a Water Recovery System. “This system collects wastewater and sends it to the Water Processor Assembly (WPA), which produces drinkable water. One specialized component uses advanced dehumidifiers to capture moisture released into the cabin air from crew breath and sweat,” wrote the Space Agency.
Another sub-system to be used was the Urine Processor Assembly (UPA). It recovers water from urine using vacuum distillation. A technology demonstration on the space station had earlier tested improvements to the UPA’s Distillation Assembly. The space agency explained, “Distillation produces water and a urine brine that still contains some reclaimable water. A Brine Processor Assembly (BPA) developed to extract this remaining wastewater has been on the space station as a demonstration of its operation in microgravity.”
“This is a very important step forward in the evolution of life support systems”
Christopher Brown, part of the team at Johnson Space Center said, “This is a very important step forward in the evolution of life support systems. Let’s say you collect 100 pounds of water at the station. You lose two pounds of that and the other 98% just keeps going around and around. Keeping that running is a pretty awesome achievement.” Careful testing has been done on the systems in ECLSS. This was done to make sure they function as they should and to show that each is dependable.