AAAR 34th Annual Conference
October 12 - October 16, 2015
Hyatt Regency
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Sampling Indoor Aerosols on the International Space Station
MARIT MEYER, Gary Casuccio, NASA Glenn Research Center
Abstract Number: 471 Working Group: Indoor Aerosols
Abstract In a spacecraft cabin environment, the size range of indoor aerosols is much larger and they persist longer than on Earth because they are not removed by gravitational settling. A previous aerosol experiment in 1991 documented that over 90% of the mass concentration of particles in the NASA Space Shuttle air were in particle size fractions between 2.5 μm and >100 μm, based on measurements with a multi-stage virtual impactor and a nephelometer (Liu et al. 1991). While the now-retired Space Shuttle had short duration missions (less than two weeks), the International Space Station (ISS) has been continually inhabited by astronauts for over a decade. High concentrations of inhalable particles on ISS are potentially responsible for crew complaints of respiratory and eye irritation and comments about 'dusty' air. Air filtration is the current control strategy for airborne particles on the ISS, and filtration modeling, performed for engineering and design validation of the air revitalization system in ISS, predicted that PM requirements would be met. However, aerosol monitoring has never been performed on the ISS to verify PM levels. A flight experiment is in preparation which will provide data on particulate matter in ISS ambient air. Particles will be collected with a thermophoretic sampler as well as with passive samplers which will extend the particle size range of sampling. Samples will be returned to Earth for chemical and microscopic analyses, providing the first aerosol data for ISS ambient air.
Reference: Liu, B. Y., Rubow, K. L., McMurry, P. H., Kotz, T. J., & Russo, D. (1991). Airborne particulate matter and spacecraft internal environments (No. 911476). SAE Technical Paper.