New method to provide astronauts with better air, water

WASHINGTON: Researchers have developed a new method for monitoring air and water aboard spacecraft that could help astronauts achieve longer missions.

As astronauts embark on increasingly ambitious space missions, scientists have to figure out how to keep them healthy for longer periods far from Earth.

That entails assuring the air they breathe and the water they drink are safe - not an easy task given their isolated locations.

Current options for testing air and water for contaminants, including microbes and radiation, require collecting samples and sending them back to Earth for analysis.

But for long missions - aboard the International Space Station (ISS), for example - this approach could take six months before the astronauts have their results.

The ISS is also equipped with some real-time hardware for detecting unwanted substances, but it has limitations.

Researchers from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, NASA Johnson Space Center, Georgia Institute of Technology, and colleagues wanted to come up with a system to conduct real-time, sensitive monitoring.

The researchers outfitted a kind of air quality monitor (AQM) already used aboard space missions with a device that can vaporise water samples, turning its contents and any contaminants, into a gas.

The gas can then enter the AQM for analysis. Astronauts could also use the same equipment, with a modification, for testing the air.

The team said the system could be used in space or for remote locations on Earth.

The study was published in the journal Analytical Chemistry.