Station Science Top News: Jan. 20, 2022
Samples from Brine Processor Assembly (BPA), which tests if additional water can be recovered from the brine processed in the International Space Station’s Urine Processor Assembly (UPA), will return on a SpaceX Dragon capsule. This technology demonstration could help achieve the mark of 98% water recovery needed for reducing vehicle mass and volume on deep space exploration missions.
The UPA aboard the space station can achieve close to 94% water recovery, but some water remains in the brine waste product after urine is processed. The BPA technology demonstration is attempting to recover that additional water on station. It has now completed five de-watering cycles. Bladders from these operational runs are planned to return on the SpaceX CRS-24 Dragon capsule and will be analyzed to confirm the efficiency of the assembly.
Learn more about the BPA.
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet are photographed working with the Brine Processor Assembly filter build. Credits: NASA
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Thousands of scientific papers have come out of the past two decades of space station research. Each year, new experiments build on that knowledge. Explore a selection of research results published from October 2020 to October 2021 in the latest “Annual Highlights of Results from the International Space Station.”
These results are a collaborative effort of the space station partnership and represent the research of scientists around the world for investigations sponsored by NASA, Roscosmos, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, ESA, and Canadian Space Agency.
