Stoichiometric constraints and complete closure of long-term life support systems.

High closure of matter recycling is an obvious requirement for long-term life support systems (LSS). Biological species are obligate components of the LSS since physical/chemical components are not able yet to provide food for crew. However including biological species into LSS is difficult due to specific stoichiometric configuration of their inputs and outputs. Formally the problem is to estimate the ability for given set of species to provide complete closure of LSS. Two possible models of metabolism organization can be considered: rigid and flexible ones. Stoichiometric analyses showed that the rigid metabolism case is not typical and takes place with very specific requirements. The flexible metabolic model can be applied to describing wide range of systems. Some formal indications of ability to provide complete closure and stationarity of LSS state are considered in the paper. These indications establish some constraints on the form of mathematical models intended to describe artificial and natural ecological systems.     

大功率电推进电源处理单元技术

电推进作为一种先进的推进技术,其发射质量轻、比冲高,可以降低发射成本。高压电源是电源处理单元（PPU）的主要功率来源,是大功率、高效PPU设计的重点。新型电力电子技术的应用,将对未来地球同步轨道（GEO）通信卫星和深空探测的发展产生重要影响。本文以5kW等级PPU为研究对象,主要介绍大功率电推进技术的现状与发展,从电力电子的拓扑、器件和控制方法3个角度分析了大功率、高效PPU技术发展的特点与前景,为中国研制大功率PPU高压电源提供参考。      

The conceptual design of a hybrid life support system based on the evaluation and comparison of terrestrial testbeds.

This report summarizes a trade study of different options of a bioregenerative Life Support System (LSS) and a subsequent conceptual design of a hybrid LSS. The evaluation was based mainly on the terrestrial testbed projects MELISSA (ESA) and BIOS (Russia). In addition, some methods suggested by the Advanced Life Support Project (NASA) were considered. Computer models, including mass flows were established for each of the systems with the goal of closing system loops to the extent possible. In order to cope with the differences in the supported crew size and provided nutrition, all systems were scaled for supporting a crew of six for a 780 day Mars mission (180 days transport to Mars; 600 days surface period) as given in the NASA Design Reference Mission Scenario [Hoffman, S.J., Kaplan, D.L. Human exploration of Mars: the Reference Mission of the NASA Mars Exploratory Study, 1997]. All models were scaled to provide the same daily allowances, as of calories, to the crew. Equivalent System Mass (ESM) analysis was used to compare the investigated system models against each other. Following the comparison of the terrestrial systems, the system specific subsystem options for Food Supply, Solid Waste Processing, Water Management and Atmosphere Revitalization were evaluated in a separate trade study. The best subsystem technologies from the trade study were integrated into an overall design solution based on mass flow relationships. The optimized LSS is mainly a bioregenerative system, complemented by a few physico-chemical elements, with a total ESM of 18,088 kg, which is about 4 times higher than that of a pure physico-chemical LSS, as designed in an earlier study.     

New concepts for the avoidance or utilisation of methane in life support systems

Due to high resupply costs, especially for long-duration stays in space habitats beyond low earth orbit, future manned space missions will require life support systems (LSS) with a high degree of regenerativity. Possible ways to overcome the waste of resources and to save on resupply mass are therefore of major interest for the development of next generation environmental control and life support systems.     

Evaluation of a combined electrostatic and magnetostatic configuration for active space-radiation shielding

Developing successful and optimal solutions to mitigating the hazards of severe space radiation in deep space long duration missions is critical for the success of deep-space explorations. A recent report (Tripathi et al., 2008) had explored the feasibility of using electrostatic shielding. Here, we continue to extend the electrostatic shielding strategy and examine a hybrid configuration that utilizes both electrostatic and magnetostatic fields. The main advantages of this system are shown to be: (i) a much better shielding and repulsion of incident ions from both solar particle events (SPE) and galactic cosmic rays (GCR), (ii) reductions in the power requirement for re-charging the electrostatic sub-system, and (iii) low requirements of the magnetic fields that are well below the thresholds set for health and safety for long-term exposures. Furthermore, our results show transmission levels reduced to levels as low as 30% for energies around 1000 MeV, and near total elimination of SPE radiation by these hybrid configurations. It is also shown that the power needed to replenish the electrostatic charges due to particle hits from the GCR and SPE radiation is minimal.     

空间科学实验通用地面检测系统研制

分析了地面检测设备在空间有效载荷研制过程中的作用,提出一种用于对多种空间微重力科学实验设备（载荷）进行地面测试的通用地面检测设备设计方法.通过载荷特性分析,对载荷中的控制对象进行分类.针对不同控制对象使用不同的操作进行控制.将载荷实验过程分解为一系列固定时刻执行的操作,通过配置静态配置表、动作配置表和动态配置表,实现对载荷实验过程的控制.地面检测设备由计算机、电源和RS422通信接口构成.针对不同载荷,使用规格一致的电缆和通信接口,保证地面监测设备的通用性.地面检测设备配合多功能炉、骨髓培养箱、辐射基因箱、煤燃烧箱、蒸发对流箱、导线特性箱及胶体材料箱7台载荷开展研制工作,在各载荷试验参数确定、空间试验流程确定、设备性能测试、环境模拟实验、电磁兼容实验、地面匹配实验以及载荷设备验收等过程中发挥了重要作用.      

航天发射用磁悬浮助推发射系统概念研究

针对日益增加的航天发射成本问题和安全、可靠、低成本航天发射方式的需求,阐述了磁悬浮助推发射概念及其优越性.初步分析了磁悬浮助推发射系统组成及各分系统功能.通过比较电磁悬浮(EMS)和超导电动(EDS)两种磁悬浮系统性能,结果表明EDS是更适合于磁悬浮助推发射的磁悬浮系统方案.通过助推发射能量需求初步分析,直线电机加速能量供给系统是难题之一,需要重点解决.采用飞行弹道分析方法,说明地面助推水平起飞单级入轨运载器方案的可行性及特点.与其它航天助推发射方式比较,磁悬浮助推发射在提高入轨载荷和降低发射成本方面具有优势.     

An alternative approach to solar system exploration providing safety of human mission to Mars.

For systematic human Mars exploration, meeting crew safety requirements, it seems perspective to assemble into a spacecraft: an electrical rocket, a well-shielded long-term life support system, and a manipulator-robots operating in combined "presence effect" and "master-slave" mode. The electrical spacecraft would carry humans to the orbit of Mars, providing short distance (and low signal time delay) between operator and robot-manipulators, which are landed on the surface of the planet. Long-term hybrid biological and physical/chemical LSS could provide environment supporting human health and well being. Robot-manipulators operating in "presence effect" and "master-slave" mode exclude necessity of human landing on Martian surface decreasing the level of risk for crew. Since crewmen would not have direct contact with the Martian environment then the problem of mutual biological protection is essentially reduced. Lightweight robot-manipulators, without heavy life support systems and without the necessity of returning to the mother vessel, could be sent as scouts to different places on the planet surface, scanning the most interesting for exobiological research site. Some approximate estimations of electric spacecraft, long-term hybrid LSS, radiation protection and mission parameters are conducted and discussed.     

Self-restoration of biocomponents as a mean to enhance Biological Life Support Systems reliability.

One of the key problems of long-term space missions is limited service life of units. The only exceptions are biological components of biological Life Support Systems--higher plants or microorganisms. These components are capable of self-restoration: after complete disintegration, they can appear again from seeds or spores. The estimate of failure intensity of BLSS regeneration component includes: a number of self-sustained sections of the regeneration component; permissible boost (how many times can productivity of a component be increased); time required to repair (restore) a component; the crew existence time, when all LSS regeneration components fail; failure rate of one section of a regeneration component. Evaluations show that for hydrogen-oxidizing bacteria and micro-algae very high reliability is achieved even for one or two sections. In the case of higher plants (due to low rate of self-restoration) bio-regenerative module has to be divided into 10 self-sustained sections operating simultaneously. These measures can decrease the probability of catastrophe by a factor of 10(6).     

垂直起降固定翼无人机串联混电系统优化设计

针对垂直起降固定翼无人机的动力需求特点，提出了一种专用于该类无人机的串联混电系统(S-HES)优化设计方法。首先，建立了旋翼、固定翼及转换模式下的垂直起降固定翼无人机的功率需求模型和基于串联混电系统功率传递路径的混电功率解算方程，给出了计及功率约束、能量约束及电池充电的电池质量解算方法，并在大量统计数据的基础上建立了其他混电部件质量解算方程。其次，使用威兰氏线法建立了考虑发动机工作点变化的燃油消耗模型。使用柯西变异粒子群算法基于各物理数学模型在飞行剖面内的各个飞行阶段展开混电控制参数优化，从而完成垂直起降固定翼无人机的顶层设计要求向串联混电系统最佳供电策略、设计功率及质量分配方案的转化。在城市货运和山区货运2种应用场景下对所提方法进行了验证。最后，分析了优化设计结果对于不同飞行阶段性能要求的敏感性。研究结果表明:所提方法可较好地捕捉垂直起降固定翼无人机任务剖面的调整及各飞行阶段的性能要求变化对串联混电系统优化设计结果的显著影响，对垂直起降固定翼无人机的各类应用场景均具有较好的适应性。      

A Novel Magnetic Configuration for Space Radiation Active Shielding

Space radiation has been identified as the main health hazard to crews involved in manned Mars missions. Active shielding is more effective than passive shielding to the very energetic particles from cosmic rays. Particle motion in a magnetic field is studied based on the single-particle theory and Monte Carlo method. By comparing the shielding efficiency of different magnetic field configurations, a novel active magnetic shielding configuration with lower mass cost and power consumption is proposed for manned Mars missions. The new magnetic configuration can shield 92.8% of protons and 84.4% of alpha particles with E < 4 GeV·n-1, when considering the passive shielding contribution of 10.0 g·cm-2 Al Shielding, the required magnetic stiffness can be reduced from 27 Tm to 16 Tm. The detailed analysis of mass cost and power consumption shows that active shielding will be a promising means to protect crews from space radiation exposure in manned Mars missions.      

杂化聚酰亚胺的制备及其耐原子氧剥蚀性能

低地球轨道环境中的原子氧会剥蚀航天器表面材料,影响其性能和寿命,因此在使用时需要选用合适的手段来进行原子氧防护。采用溶胶-凝胶法,利用正硅酸乙酯在树脂体系中的水解-缩合反应,在基体中原位生成无机相而获得杂化聚酰亚胺。在原子氧效应地面模拟设备中,对杂化聚酰亚胺试样开展了性能评估试验,总结了试验前后试样的质量、表面形貌和表面成分的变化特点,并分析了材料耐剥蚀性能与正硅酸乙酯添加量的关系、杂化材料的耐剥蚀机理。结果表明,杂化聚酰亚胺的耐原子氧性能优于原树脂,其原子氧试验质量损失仅为原树脂的31。6% ~14。8%。分析认为,溶胶-凝胶过程中在树脂基体中生成的有机含硅结构和无机SiO₂,以及原子氧作用下杂化材料表面生成的SiO₂保护层,是杂化材料耐原子氧剥蚀性能提高的原因。     

The biological component of the life support system for a Martian expedition.

Ground-based experiments at RF SSC-IBMP RAS (State Science Center of Russian Federation--Institute of Biomedical Problems of Russian Academia of Science) were aimed at overall studies of a human-unicellular algae-mineralization LSS (life support system) model. The system was 15 m3 in volume. It contained 45 L of algal suspension with a dry substance density of 10-12 g per liter; water volume, including the algal suspension, was 59 L. More sophisticated model systems with partial substitution of unicellular algae with higher plates (crop area of 15 m2) were tested in three experiments from 1.5 to 2 months in duration. The experiments demonstrated that LSS employing the unicellular algae play not only a macrofunction (regeneration of atmosphere and water) but also carry some other functions (purification of atmosphere, formation of microbial cenosis etc.) providing an adequate human environment. It is also important that functional reliability of the algal regenerative subsystem is secured by a huge number of cells able, in the event of death of a part of population, to recover in the shortest possible time the size of population and, hence, functionality of the LSS autotrophic component. For a long period of time a Martian crew will be detached from Earth's biosphere and for this reason LSS of their vehicle must be highly reliable, robust and redundant. One of the approaches to LSS redundancy is installation of two systems with different but equally efficient regeneration technologies, i.e. physical-chemical and biological. At best, these two systems should operate in parallel sharing the function of regeneration of the human environment. In case of failure or a sharp deterioration in performance of one system the other will, by way of redundancy, increase its throughput to make up for the loss. This LSS design will enable simultaneous handling of a number of critical problems including adequate satisfaction of human environmental needs.     

中国空间大功率微波部件微放电抑制表面处理技术最新进展

材料表面的二次电子发射会触发和维持空间高功率射频器件的共振雪崩放电现象,这种现象又被称为微放电效应。微放电效应是限制空间大功率微波部件应用的关键问题之一。从微放电作用的机理出发,首先介绍了两种微放电类型（单表面与双表面）的基本物理机理;然后总结了当前主流的微放电抑制方法并给出各自应用于空间大功率微波部件时的限制。针对空间大功率微波部件微放电抑制的特殊问题,综述了国内近5年来在表面处理法抑制微放电领域的研究成果并预测了微放电抑制技术的发展趋势。     

Interaction of physical-chemical and biological regeneration processes in ecological Life Support Systems.

Catalytic combustion of inedible biomass of plants in ecological Life Support Systems (LSS) gives rise to gaseous oxides (CO2, NO2, SO2, etc.). Some of them are toxic for plants suppressing their photosynthesis and productivity. Experiments with "Bios-3" experimental LSS demonstrate that a decrease of photosynthetic productivity in a system with straw incineration can jeopardize its steady operation. Analysis of the situation by a mathematical model taking into account absorption parameters of the system in terms of toxic elements makes it possible to formulate requirements for the structure and operation of LSS to provide for its stability. Avenues for further investigation of the problem of toxic stability of LSS are proposed.     

The role of computerized modeling and simulation in the development of life support system technologies.

Using conventional means of process development, it would take decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to develop technology for recycling of water and solid waste for lunar missions within the next thirty years. Since we anticipate neither that amount of time nor level of funding, new methodologies for developing life support systems (LSS) technologies are essential. Computerized modeling and simulation (CMAS) is a tool that can greatly reduce both the time and cost of technology development. By CMAS, we refer to computer methods for correlating, storing and retrieving property data for chemical species and for solving the phenomenological equations of physical/chemical processes (i.e., process conditions based on properties of materials and mass and energy balances, equipment sizing based on rate processes and the governing equations for unit operations). In particular, CMAS systems can be used to evaluate a LSS process design with minimal requirements for laboratory experimentation. A CMAS model using ASPEN PLUS is presented for a vapor compression distillation (VCD) system designed for reclaiming water from urine.     

浮升混合飞艇气动性能及总体参数分析

为了兼顾飞艇的气动性能和浮升特性,充分发挥二者的优势,并增强可控性,提出了一种基于NACA高升力翼型的组合嚢体式混合飞艇气动布局.采用计算流体力学(CFD)方法建立混合飞艇FLUENT计算模型,数值模拟了它在不同速度和迎角下的升阻特性、纵向静稳定性及浮升特性,并进行了总体性能评估,最后将其与常规飞艇进行了对比.结果表明:该组合嚢体飞艇布局具有较好的气动性能和效率,相同条件下提供的动升力为常规飞艇的3倍;当飞行速度大于26 m/s时,混合飞艇总升力效率开始大于常规飞艇,能够提供更好的浮升特性.此外,相同设计载荷下混合飞艇的外形尺寸更小,有利于增加有效载荷,可为低空大型混合飞艇的研发提供参考.      

Biological life-support systems for Mars mission.

Mars mission like the Lunar base is the first venture to maintain human life beyond earth biosphere. So far, all manned space missions including the longest ones used stocked reserves and can not be considered egress from biosphere. Conventional path proposed by technology for Martian mission LSS is to use physical-chemical approaches proved by the experience of astronautics. But the problem of man living beyond the limits of the earth biosphere can be fundamentally solved by making a closed ecosystem for him. The choice optimum for a Mars mission LSS can be substantiated by comparing the merits and demerits of physical-chemical and biological principles without ruling out possible compromise between them. The work gives comparative analysis of ecological and physical-chemical principles for LSS. Taking into consideration universal significance of ecological problems with artificial LSS as a particular case of their solution, complexity and high cost of large-scale experiments with manned LSS, it would be expedient for these works to have the status of an International Program open to be joined. A program of making artificial biospheres based on preceding experience and analysis of current situation is proposed.     

大型空间结构材料性质退化和结构损伤

就材料性质的退化对大型空间结构动力响应的影响以及大型空间结构在轨损伤评估两个问题进行简要论述。损伤通常在复合材料中发生。对典型的空间桁架结构研究表明:材料性质的退化将引起固有频率的降低,并对振型有显著影响。介绍一种应用在轨响应测量的理论来评估结构系统损伤的发生、位置和程度。以天线桁架为例说明此理论的应用。