About

Vision, Mission, Goal, & Objective

Vision:

Develop an innovative, reliable, compact, and energy efficient air revitalization system for gravity independent manned exploration.

Mission:

Separating CO₂ from enclosed environments in space application is extremely important. If CO₂ levels in the enclosed cabin exceed 5.2 mmHg per 180 days, death by hypercapnia can occur. This value for CO₂ grows smaller as the days in space increase. Hypercapnia can cause shallow breathing, disorientation, cognitive deficiencies, reduced vision, and headaches, leading to decreased performance amongst crew members and eventually death. As NASA ventures farther into space with the intent of one day allowing humans to inhabit other planets, CO₂ separation technology becomes vital. The UNT X-Hab 2020 teams’ mission is to investigate an alternative gravity independent gas-liquid separator solution for H₂O removal from a heated, humid CO₂ system.​

Goal:

Separating CO₂ from enclosed environments in space application is extremely important. If CO₂ levels in the enclosed cabin exceed 5.2 mmHg per 180 days, death by hypercapnia can occur. This value for CO₂ grows smaller as the days in space increase. Hypercapnia can cause shallow breathing, disorientation, cognitive deficiencies, reduced vision, and headaches, leading to decreased performance amongst crew members and eventually death. As NASA ventures farther into space with the intent of one day allowing humans to inhabit other planets, CO₂ separation technology becomes vital. The UNT X-Hab 2020 teams’ mission is to investigate an alternative gravity independent gas-liquid separator solution for H₂O removal from a heated, humid CO₂ system.​

Objectives:

As NASA ventures to the Moon and Mars, resupply of oxygen to the crew is crucial in sustaining their lives in space. Since space is a micro-gravity environment and the cabin of the spacecraft is closed to the space atmosphere, CO₂ and water vapor can build up in the atmosphere, causing hypercapnia to affect the crew. The UNT X-Hab 2020 teams’ vision is to design, build, and test a prototype gravity independent gas-liquid separator for removing H₂O from CO₂.