| 1. |
- Cockell, Charles S., et al.
(författare)
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Subsurface scientific exploration of extraterrestrial environments (MINAR 5) : analogue science, technology and education in the Boulby Mine, UK
- 2019
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Ingår i: International Journal of Astrobiology. - : Cambridges Institutes Press. - 1473-5504 .- 1475-3006. ; 18:2, s. 157-182
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The deep subsurface of other planetary bodies is of special interest for robotic and human exploration. The subsurface provides access to planetary interior processes, thus yielding insights into planetary formation and evolution. On Mars, the subsurface might harbour the most habitable conditions. In the context of human exploration, the subsurface can provide refugia for habitation from extreme surface conditions. We describe the fifth Mine Analogue Research (MINAR 5) programme at 1 km depth in the Boulby Mine, UK in collaboration with Spaceward Bound NASA and the Kalam Centre, India, to test instruments and methods for the robotic and human exploration of deep environments on the Moon and Mars. The geological context in Permian evaporites provides an analogue to evaporitic materials on other planetary bodies such as Mars. A wide range of sample acquisition instruments (NASA drills, Small Planetary Impulse Tool (SPLIT) robotic hammer, universal sampling bags), analytical instruments (Raman spectroscopy, Close-Up Imager, Minion DNA sequencing technology, methane stable isotope analysis, biomolecule and metabolic life detection instruments) and environmental monitoring equipment (passive air particle sampler, particle detectors and environmental monitoring equipment) was deployed in an integrated campaign. Investigations included studying the geochemical signatures of chloride and sulphate evaporitic minerals, testing methods for life detection and planetary protection around human-tended operations, and investigations on the radiation environment of the deep subsurface. The MINAR analogue activity occurs in an active mine, showing how the development of space exploration technology can be used to contribute to addressing immediate Earth-based challenges. During the campaign, in collaboration with European Space Agency (ESA), MINAR was used for astronaut familiarization with future exploration tools and techniques. The campaign was used to develop primary and secondary school and primary to secondary transition curriculum materials on-site during the campaign which was focused on a classroom extra vehicular activity simulation.
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| 2. |
- Israel Nazarious, Miracle, et al.
(författare)
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Calibration and preliminary tests of the Brine Observation Transition To Liquid Experiment on HABIT/ExoMars 2020 for demonstration of liquid water stability on Mars
- 2019
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Ingår i: Acta Astronautica. - : Elsevier. - 0094-5765 .- 1879-2030. ; 162, s. 497-510
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The search for unequivocal proofs of liquid water on present day Mars is a prominent domain of research with implications on habitability and future Mars exploration. The HABIT (Habitability: Brines, Irradiation, and Temperature) instrument that will be on-board the ExoMars 2020 Surface Platform (ESA-IKI Roscosmos) will investigate the habitability of present day Mars, monitoring temperature, winds, dust conductivity, ultraviolet radiation and liquid water formation. One of the components of HABIT is the experiment BOTTLE (Brine Observation Transition To Liquid Experiment). The purposes of BOTTLE are to: (1) quantify the formation of transient liquid brines; (2) observe their stability over time under non-equilibrium conditions; and (3) serve as an In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) technology demonstrator for water moisture capture. In this manuscript, we describe the calibration procedure of BOTTLE with standard concentrations of brines, the calibration function and the coefficients needed to interpret the observations on Mars.BOTTLE consists of six containers: four of them are filled with different deliquescent salts that have been found on Mars (calcium-perchlorate, magnesium-perchlorate, calcium-chloride, and sodium-perchlorate); and two containers that are open to the air, to collect atmospheric dust. The salts are exposed to the Martian environment through a high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filter (to comply with planetary protection protocols). The deliquescence process will be monitored by observing the changes in electrical conductivity (EC) in each container: dehydrated salts show low EC, hydrated salts show medium EC and, liquid brines show high EC values. We report and interpret the preliminary test results using the BOTTLE engineering model in representative conditions; and we discuss how this concept can be adapted to other exploration missions.Our laboratory observations show that 1.2 g of anhydrous calcium-chloride captures about 3.7 g of liquid water as brine passing through various possible hydrate forms. This ISRU technology could potentially be the first attempt to understand the formation of transient liquid water on Mars and to develop self-sustaining in-situ water harvesting on Mars for future human and robotic missions.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Israel Nazarious, Miracle, et al.
(författare)
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Measuring Electrical Conductivity to Study the Formation of Brines Under Martian Conditions
- 2021
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Ingår i: Journal of Visualized Experiments. - : JoVE. - 1940-087X. ; 173
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper describes a protocol to design experiments to study the formation of brines under Martian conditions and monitor the process with electrical conductivity measurements. We used the Engineering Qualification Model (EQM) of Habitability: Brines, Irradiation, and Temperature (HABIT)/ExoMars 2022 instrument for the experiment setup but we provide a brief account of constructing a simple and inexpensive electrical conductivity measurement setup. The protocol serves to calibrate the electrical conductivity measurements of the salt deliquescence into brine in a simulated Martian environment. The Martian conditions of temperature (-70 °C to 20 °C), relative humidity (0% to 100%) and pressure (7 - 8 mbar) with carbon-dioxide atmosphere were simulated in the SpaceQ Mars simulation chamber, a facility at the Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. The hydrate form of the known amount of salt accommodated between a pair of electrodes and thus the electrical conductivity measured depends predominantly on its water content and the temperature and relative humidity of the system. Electrical conductivity measurements were carried out at 1 Hz while exposing salts to a continuously increasing relative humidity (to force transitioning through various hydrates) at different Martian temperatures. For demonstration, a day-night cycle at Oxia Planum, Mars (the landing site of ExoMars 2022 mission) was recreated.
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| 5. |
- Israel Nazarious, Miracle, et al.
(författare)
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Metabolt : An In-Situ Instrument to Characterize the Metabolic Activity of Microbial Soil Ecosystems Using Electrochemical and Gaseous Signatures
- 2020
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Ingår i: Sensors. - : MDPI. - 1424-8220. ; 20:16
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Metabolt is a portable soil incubator to characterize the metabolic activity of microbial ecosystems in soils. It measures the electrical conductivity, the redox potential, and the concentration of certain metabolism-related gases in the headspace just above a given sample of regolith. In its current design, the overall weight of Metabolt, including the soils (250 g), is 1.9 kg with a maximum power consumption of 1.5 W. Metabolt has been designed to monitor the activity of the soil microbiome for Earth and space applications. In particular, it can be used to monitor the health of soils, the atmospheric-regolith fixation, and release of gaseous species such as N2, H2O, CO2, O2, N2O, NH3, etc., that affect the Earth climate and atmospheric chemistry. It may be used to detect and monitor life signatures in soils, treated or untreated, as well as in controlled environments like greenhouse facilities in space, laboratory research environments like anaerobic chambers, or simulating facilities with different atmospheres and pressures. To illustrate its operation, we tested the instrument with sub-arctic soil samples at Earth environmental conditions under three different conditions: (i) no treatment (unperturbed); (ii) sterilized soil: after heating at 125 °C for 35.4 h (thermal stress); (iii) stressed soil: after adding 25% CaCl2 brine (osmotic stress); with and without addition of 0.5% glucose solution (for control). All the samples showed some distinguishable metabolic response, however there was a time delay on its appearance which depends on the treatment applied to the samples: 80 h for thermal stress without glucose, 59 h with glucose; 36 h for osmotic stress with glucose and no significant reactivation in the pure water case. This instrument shows that, over time, there is a clear observable footprint of the electrochemical signatures in the redox profile which is complementary to the gaseous footprint of the metabolic activity through respiration.
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| 6. |
- Israel Nazarious, Miracle, et al.
(författare)
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Pressure Optimized PowEred Respirator (PROPER) : A miniaturized wearable cleanroom and biosafety system for aerially transmitted viral infections such as COVID-19
- 2020
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Ingår i: HardwareX. - : Elsevier. - 2468-0672. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in hospitals to keep the Health Care Professionals (HCP) safe taking care of patients may be limited, especially during the outbreak of a new disease. In particular, the face and body protective equipment is critical to prevent the wearer from exposure to pathogenic biological airborne particulates. This situation has been now observed worldwide during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. As concern over shortages of PPE at hospitals grows, we share with the public and makers’ community the Pressure Optimized PowEred Respirator (PROPER) equipment, made out of COTS components. It is functionally equivalent to a Powered Air Purifying Respirator (PAPR). PROPER, a hood-based system which uses open source and easily accessible components is low-cost, relatively passive in terms of energy consumption and mechanisms, and easy and fast to 3D print, build and assemble. We have adapted our experience on building clean room environments and qualifying the bioburden of space instruments to this solution, which is in essence a miniaturized, personal, wearable cleanroom. PROPER would be able to offer better protection than an N95 respirator mask, mainly because it is insensitive to seal fit and it shields the eyes as well. The PROPER SMS fabric is designed for single-use and not intended for reuse, as they may start to tear and fail but the rest of the parts can be disinfected and reused. We provide a set of guidelines to build a low-cost 3D printed solution for an effective PAPR system and describe the procedures to validate it to comply with the biosafety level 3 requirements. We have validated the prototype of PROPER unit for air flow, ISO class cleanliness level, oxygen and carbon-dioxide gas concentrations during exhalation, and present here these results for illustration. We demonstrate that the area inside the hood is more than 200 times cleaner than the external ambient without the operator and more than 175 times with the operator and in an aerosol exposed environment. We also include the procedure to clean and disinfect the equipment for reuse. PROPER may be a useful addition to provide protection to HCPs against the SARS-CoV-2 virus or other potential future viral diseases that are transmitted aerially.
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| 7. |
- Martin-Torres, Javier, et al.
(författare)
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The HABIT (HabitAbility: Brine Irradiation and Temperature) environmental instrument for the ExoMars 2022 Surface Platform
- 2020
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Ingår i: Planetary and Space Science. - : Elsevier. - 0032-0633 .- 1873-5088. ; 190
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The HABIT (HabitAbility: Brine Irradiation and Temperature) instrument is a European payload of the ExoMars 2022 Surface Platform Kazachok that will characterize the present-day habitability at its landing place in Oxia Planum, Mars. HABIT consists of two modules: (i) EnvPack (Environmental Package) that monitors the thermal environment (air and ground), the incident ultraviolet radiation, the near surface winds and the atmospheric dust cycle; and (ii) BOTTLE (Brine Observation Transition To Liquid Experiment), an In-situ Resource Utilization instrument to produce liquid water for future Mars exploration. BOTTLE will be used also to investigate the electrical conductivity properties of the martian atmosphere, the present-day atmospheric-ground water cycle and to evaluate if liquid water can exist on Mars in the form of brines, and for how long. These variables measured by HABIT are critical to determine the present and future habitability of the martian surface. In this paper, we describe in detail the HABIT instrument and sensors, together with the calibration of its Flight Model (FM) and the Engineering Qualification Model (EQM) versions. The EnvPack module has heritage from previous missions operating on the surface of Mars, and the environmental observations of its sensors will be directly comparable to those delivered by those missions. HABIT can provide information of the local temperature with ±0.2 °C accuracy, local winds with ±0.3 m/s, surface brightness temperature with ±0.8 °C, incident UV irradiance with 10% error of its absolute value in the UV-A, UV-B, UV-C ranges, as well as in the total UV-ABC range, and two additional wavebands, dedicated to ozone absorption. The UV observations can be used to derive the total opacity column and thus monitor the dust and ozone cycles. BOTTLE can demonstrate the hydration state of a set of four deliquescent salts, which have been found on Mars (calcium chloride, ferric sulphate, magnesium perchlorate and sodium perchlorate) by monitoring their electric conductivity (EC). The EC of the air and the dry salts under Earth ambient, clean room conditions is of the order of 0.1 μScm−1. We have simulated HABIT operations, within an environmental chamber, under martian conditions similar to those expected at Oxia Planum. For dry, CO2 atmospheric conditions at martian pressures, the air EC can be as low as 10−8 μScm−1, however it increases with the relative humidity (RH) percentage. The laboratory experiments show that after an increase from 0 to 60% RH within a few hours, the EC of the air increased up to 10−1 μScm−1, magnesium perchlorate hydrated and reached values of 10 μScm-1, whereas calcium chloride deliquesced forming a liquid state with EC of 102 μScm−1. HABIT will operate with a regular cadence, through day and night. The Electronic Unit (EU) is protected with a heater that is activated when its temperature is below −33 °C and disabled if the temperature of the surface platform rises above −30 °C. Additionally, the heaters of the BOTTLE unit can be activated to dehydrate the salts and reset the experiment. HABIT weighs only 918 g. Its power consumption depends on the operation mode and internal temperature, and it varies between 0.7 W, for nominal operation, and 13.1 W (when heaters are turned on at full intensity). HABIT has a baseline data rate of 1.5 MB/sol. In addition to providing critical environmental observations, this light and robust instrument, will be the first demonstrator of a water capturing system on the surface of Mars, and the first European In-Situ Resource Utilization in the surface of another planet.
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| 8. |
- Martorell, José Antonio Gordillo, et al.
(författare)
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Metabolizing science from the laboratory to the classroom : The Metabolt Educational Experience
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Engineering Science and Technology. - : STEM Publishers. ; 2:7, s. 9-26
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The present article summarizes a pilot knowledge co-creation process experience done with a group of 15 eleven and twelve years old students of Porsöskolan, a public school near Luleå Tekniska Universitet from September 2018 to January 2019. The experience is based on a true research project of the Group of Atmospheric Science (GAS) called METABOLT, an instrument to investigate the metabolic activity of microorganisms in soils by measuring the electrochemical and gaseous bio signatures. In this paper, we explain how we have designed, developed, applied and evaluated a complete learning and engagement strategy to bring science from the laboratory to the classroom. The experience adapts the scientific method to the primary classroom level, taking as practical case the METABOLT experiment: identification of a problem, hypothesis design, experiment creation to get results, analysis and confrontation with the hypothesis and provisional conclusions to verify or discard them. After the experience a set of surveys were given to all the stakeholders, students, teachers and researchers to evaluate their perception of the effects of the activity. One unexpected result is the difference in perception between the teachers and students on the learning experience. This project demonstrates that professional researchers with the adequate communication strategy, training and tracking can promote a relevant learning process and achieve a social impact in different audiences
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| 9. |
- Mathanlal, Thasshwin, et al.
(författare)
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ATMO-Vent : an adapted breathing atmosphere for COVID-19 patients
- 2020
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Ingår i: HardwareX. - : Elsevier. - 2468-0672. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has been one of the most significant challenges to humankind in centuries. The extremely contagious nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has put forth an immense pressure on the health sector. In order to mitigate the stress on the healthcare systems especially to battle the crisis of mechanical ventilators, we have designed a modular, and robust DIY ventilator, ATMO-Vent (Atmospheric Mixture Optimization Ventilator) which can be fully mounted within two days by two operators. The ATMO-Vent has been designed using low-cost, robust, Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) components, with many features comparable to a full-fledged ventilator. ATMO-Vent has been designed based on the United Kingdom Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (UK-MHRA) guidelines for Rapidly Manufactured Ventilator System (RMVS), yet scalable to the specific requirements of different countries. ATMO-Vent is capable of adjusting the Fraction of Inspiratory Oxygen (FiO2) levels, Tidal Volume (TV), frequency of breaths, Inspiratory/Expiratory ratio (I/E), Peak Inspiratory Pressure (PIP) and Positive End-Expiratory Pressure (PEEP). ATMO-Vent can operate in two modes - Continuous Mandatory Ventilation (CMV) using Volume-Controlled Ventilation (VCV) and in Assisted Control (AC) mode with pressure triggered by the patient. ATMO-Vent has undergone rigorous testing and qualifies under Class B Electric and Magnetic Compatibility (EMC) requirements of EN 55011 CISPR 11 standards.
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| 10. |
- Mathanlal, Thasshwin, et al.
(författare)
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Implementing Bioburden reduction and control on the deliquescent hydrogel of the ExoMars, HABIT Instrument
- 2019
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Ingår i: IAC-19. - : International Astronautical Federation.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The HABIT (HabitAbility, Brines, Irradiation and Temperature) instrument, will be the first Swedish Instrument that will land on the surface of Mars as a part of the ExoMars 2020 mission (ESA/IKI). It is also the first European ISRU (In-situ Resource Utilization) instrument capable of producing liquid water on Mars extracting atmospheric water vapor using salt deliquescence to form a stable liquid brine. HABIT also will study current habitability conditions on Mars investigating the air and surface thermal ranges and UV (Ultra-Violet) irradiance. The BOTTLE (Brine Observation Transition To Liquid Experiment) is the container element of HABIT with four independent cells housing deliquescent salts, which have been found on Mars, exposing them to the Martian atmosphere. In order to prevent capillarity of deliquescent or hydrated salts a mixture of deliquescent salts with Super Absorbent Polymer (SAP) based on polyacrylamide is utilized. This mixture has deliquescent and hydrogel properties that can be reused by applying a thermal cycle, complying thus with the purpose of the instrument. A Poly-Tetra Fluro Ethylene (PTFE) coated nylon HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filter stands as a physical barrier allowing interaction between the gaseous molecules of the Martian atmosphere and the salt mixtures, and at the same time prevents the passage of any biological contamination from the cells to the outside or vice-versa. In addition to the physical barrier, a strict bioburden reduction and analysis is made on the contained salt mixtures adhering to the European Cooperation for Space Standardization protocol of Microbial examination of flight hardware (ECSS-Q-ST-70-55C). The deliquescent salts and the SAP products need to be properly treated independently to adhere to the planetary protection protocols. In this paper, we have described the bioburden reduction process utilized to sterilize the salt mixtures in BOTTLE and the assays adopted to validate the sterilization. The sterilization process adopted involves ultra-fine filtration and Dry Heat Microbial Reduction (DHMR) of the deliquescent salts and the SAP respectively. The performance of SAP after DHMR is validated to ensure its working efficiency after sterilization. A standard swab assay and a pour-plate assay are adopted in the validation process and a comparison is made between them to determine the best assay to be applied for future space hardware utilizing such salt mixtures for planetary investigation and ISRU. The demonstrating of the compatibility of these products with the processes commonly required for space applications has implications for the future explorationof Mars.
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