The Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) is a system of regenerative life support hardware that provides clean air and water to the International Space Station (ISS) crew and laboratory animals through artificial means. The creation of the ECLSS allows for the accommodation of more crew on the Space Station, extends the time crew can stay in space, and significantly reduces the cost of operating the Space Station. The regenerative ECLSS consists of a few key components that recycle wastes to useful resources, the Water Recovery System (WRS), the Oxygen Generation System (OGS), and the Carbon Dioxide Reduction Assembly (CRA). Prior to the ISS, the life support systems on the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo spacecraft in the 1960s were designed to be used once and discarded.  But even with these successes, barriers and challenges still exist that need to be solved to enable humans to live and work in space and on planetary surfaces more and more independently on Earth.

Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS)

2019 Spring National Meeting

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