Water Treatment Unit Breadboard : ground test facility for the recycling of urine and shower water for one astronaut

One of the major challenges for long-term manned Space missions is the requirement of a regenerative life support system. When minimizing the amount of water available per astronaut to 13 L d-1, a mission of 6 crew members requires almost 30 ton of fresh water supplies per year, i.e. the International Space Station (ISS) weighs approximately 400 ton. Therefore, the development of an efficient water recovery system is essential to future Space exploration. A Water Treatment Unit Breadboard (WTUB) has been developed to recover 90% of the water in urine, condensate and shower water produced by one crew member and this life support testbed facility was inspired by the MELiSSA loop concept, ESA's Life Support System. In the WTUB, a water recovery of >85% was achieved by an integrated bio-physicochemical urine treatment combined with NF/RO filtration.