The Demonstration of a Robotic External Leak Locator for the International Space Station

Naids, Adam J ; Bond, Tim ; Craw, Chris ; Buffington, Jesse ; Rossetti, Dino ; Huang, Alvin ; Deal, Alexandra ; Fox, Katie ; Heiser, Michael ; Hartman, William(Boeing Co, Pasadena, TX, United States)

关键词: DEEP SPACE;    DETECTION;    ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL;    LEAKAGE;    LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS;    MASS SPECTROMETERS;    RISK ASSESSMENT;    ROBOTICS;    AMMONIA;    INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION;    MANNED SPACECRAFT;    PAYLOADS;    POSITION (LOCATION);    TEMPERATURE CONTROL;   

RP-ID  :  JSC-E-DAA-TN60198

学科分类：航空航天科学

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来源: NASA Technical Reports Server

【 摘 要 】

The International Space Station (ISS) and all currently conceivable future manned spacecraft are susceptible to mission impacts due to fluid/gas leaks to the exterior environment. For example, there is a well-known risk of ammonia leaks from the ISS External Active Thermal Control System (EATCS) loops and as of 2016 there was no method to locate them. It was, therefore, critical to develop a method for detecting and locating leaks to preserve vehicle health. The Robotic External Leak Locator (RELL) was developed and deployed to the ISS to provide this capability. An on-orbit validation and demonstration was successfully completed in December 2016 and leak locating operations occurred in February 2017. This paper discusses the results of these exercises including measurements of the environment around ISS, detection of a small ammonia leak and implementation of leak locating methodologies. RELL is a collaboration between NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and Johnson Space Center (JSC) and was launched to the ISS as a Technology Demonstration Payload in December 2015 on Orbital-ATK Commercial Resupply Flight 4.