10th Anniversary of the MELiSSA Pilot Plant

The MELISSA pilot plant, the UAB laboratory and the School of Engineering's ESA which develops technologies to make space missions self-sufficient, celebrated the 10th anniversary of the pilot plant with a review of the project so far.

04/04/2019

Coinciding with the 10th anniversary of the MELiSSA Pilot Plant at the UAB, and 30 years since the beginning of the European Space Agency's (ESA) project, this morning representatives met to review the results obtained, present the latest technological upgrades and explain the new stage of the project. Participating in the meeting were MELiSSA coordinators at the ESA Christophe Lasseur and Brigitte Lamaze, and Francesc Gòdia, professor of the UAB Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering and director of the MELiSSA pilot plant. Representatives of the international consortium, national delegations of the European Space Agency and the CDTI in the case of Spain, as well as the technological business partners also were present at the meeting. Speeches were given by the Rector of UAB, Margarita Arboix; Director General of Research of the Government of Catalonia, Joan Gómez Pallarès; ESA Director of Technology, Engineering and Quality, Franco Ongaro; and Director General of Scientific Policies from the Ministry for Science, Innovation and Universities.

MELiSSA is the acronym for Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative, an innovative project of the European Space Agency which was initiated as part of a research programme on life support technologies, in order to facilitate long duration manned space missions. Indeed, although the pilot plant has been located at the UAB for 10 years now, this project is celebrating 30 years in 2019. This is the only laboratory in Europe set up for the demonstration of Closed Loop Life Support Systems, a regenerative circular system for food, water and oxygen recovery from wastes, carbon dioxide and minerals.

These types of missions cannot be performed without regenerative life support systems like MELiSSA which will drastically reduce the amount of logistics needed to support the crew (without recycling, 30T for a 1000 days Mars mission). For this, a regenerative circular system is proposed, with the generation of edible material from higher plants and microalgae, revitalization of atmosphere for respiration, recovery of water, and recycling of the wastes generated by the crew and plant growth. The MELISSA project is targeting ideally 100% of recycling of all chemical elements, i.e. a fully self-sustainable ecosystem without any resupply. In terms of processes, control, stability, safety, robustness, this target represents a very high challenge.

In the past 10 years since the inauguration of the pilot plant at the UAB, several achievements have been made in the progressive construction of the different blocks comprising the MELiSSa pilot plant. To be highlighted, the operation of three compartments of the MELiSSA Pilot Plant during a long term period under continuous and controlled operation was successfully achieved, demonstration the scientific and technological capacities of the Consortium. These three compartments were a nitrification bioreactor, a microalgae photobioreactor and an animal isolator as a crew mock-up.

In views of the project's new phase, which will be decisive for the achievement of its goals, the MELiSSA compartments have been upgraded in several aspects, such as sterility and protection from external contamination. The facility has been reinforced against potential contaminants and with improved technologies and with a change in the characteristics of the plant's ceiling. The efficiency of the microalgae production system has also been improved by using LED as a light source.

In parallel, solid progresses have been achieved as well for space demonstration such as the photobiorecator ARTEMISS on board ISS and nitrifying bacteria exposure to space (NITRIMEL) within a Russian satellite.

The MELiSSA project is an international and multidisciplinary collaboration with a core team of fourteen partners, including ESA, i.e. SCK/CEN (Mol, B), VITO (Mol, B), University of Ghent (Ghent, B), University of Mons (Mons, B), Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (Barcelona, E), University of Guelph (Guelph, CND), University Clermont Auvergne (Clermont-Ferrand, F), SHERPA Engineering (Paris, F), Enginsoft (Bergamo, IT), University of Napoli Federico II (Napoli, IT), Univeristy of Lausanne (Lausanne, CH), IPStar (Vught, NL), the MELiSSA Foundation (Brussels, Belgium). The coordination of the Consortium is done by ESA, at the request of the rest of the partners. As the project develops, more and more European companies and organizations are contributing to the joint venture, bringing complementary expertise where needed (today more than 50 organizations from 12 countries have contributed to MELiSSA). The scientists and engineers in MELiSSA are from various horizons (academic organizations, industries) and gather a comprehensive multidisciplinary expertise (microbiology, modelling, process engineering, biotechnology, system engineering, nutrition, automation, genomics, proteomics, etc.).