November 19, 2008
PASADENA, Calif. – NASA astronauts on Space Shuttle Endeavour's STS-126 mission
will install an instrument on the International Space Station that can "smell"
dangerous chemicals in the air. Designed to help protect crew members' health
and safety, the experimental "ENose" will monitor the space station's environment
for chemicals such as ammonia, mercury, methanol and formaldehyde.
The ENose fills the long-standing gap between onboard alarms and complex analytical
instruments. Air-quality problems have occurred on the International Space Station,
space shuttle and Russian Space Station Mir. In most cases, the chemicals were identified
only after the crew had been exposed to them, if at all. The ENose, which will run continuously
and autonomously, is the first instrument on station that will detect and quantify chemical leaks
or spills as they happen.
"The ENose is a 'first-responder' that will alert crew members of possible contaminants
in the air and also analyze and quantify targeted changes in cabin environment," said Margaret
A. Ryan, the principal investigator of the ENose project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
or JPL, in Pasadena, Calif. JPL built and manages the device.
Station crew members will unpack the ENose on Dec. 9 to begin the instrument's six-month
demonstration in the crew cabin. If the experiment is successful, the ENose might be used in
future space missions as part of an automated system to monitor and control astronauts'
in-space environments.
"This ENose is a very capable instrument that will increase crew awareness of the state
of their air quality," said Carl Walz, an International Space Station astronaut and Director
for NASA's Advanced Capabilities Division, which funds the ENose. "Having experienced an
air-quality event during my Expedition 4 mission on the space station, I wish I had the
information that this ENose will provide future crews. This technology demonstration will
provide important information for environmental control and life-support system designers
for the future lunar outpost."
Specifically, the shoebox-sized ENose contains an array of 32 sensors that can identify and
quantify several organic and inorganic chemical species, including organic solvents and marker
chemicals that signal the start of electrical fires. The ENose sensors are polymer films that
change their electrical conductivity in response to different chemicals. The pattern of the
sensor array's response depends on the particular chemical types present in the air.
The instrument can analyze volatile aerosols and vapors, help monitor the cleanup of chemical
spills or leaks, and enable more intensive chemical analysis by collecting raw data and streaming
it to a computer at JPL's ENose laboratory. The instrument has a wide range of chemical
sensitivity, from fractional parts per million to 10,000 parts per million. For all of its
capabilities, the ENose weighs less than nine pounds and requires only 20 watts of power.
The ENose is now in its third generation. The first ENose was tested during a six-day demonstration
on the STS-95 shuttle mission in 1998. That prototype could detect 10 compounds but could not
analyze data immediately. The second-generation ENose could detect, identify and quantify 21 chemical
species. It was extensively ground-tested. The third-generation ENose includes data-analysis software
to identify and quantify the release of chemicals within 40 minutes of detection. While it will look
for 10 chemical species in this six-month experiment, the new ENose can be trained to detect many others.
For more information about the ENose and the Advanced Environmental Monitoring and Control Project,
visit: http://aemc.jpl.nasa.gov/instruments/enose.cfm
For more information about NASA's exploration program, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/exploration
For more information about the International Space Station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station
Media contacts: Rhea Borja
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0850
Rhea.R.Borja@jpl.nasa.gov
Grey Hautaluoma/Ashley Edwards
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0668/1756
grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov
ashley.edwards-1@nasa.gov
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