NASA buoyant over new Space Station water contract

William Atkins
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 19:24

Science - Space

NASA announced on April 15, 2008 the award of a contact to Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems International to provide water production services for the Space Station. What is interesting about this contract is that NASA is not purchasing hardware but only buying water services.


Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems International Inc. (HSSSI), based out of Windsor Locks, Connecticut (United States), will provide equipment to the International Space Station that will use excess carbon dioxide and hydrogen to make water and methane.

The process will vent the methane out of the station while sending the produced water into the ISS’ waste water system where it will undergo further treatment.

The ISS’ waste water system is called the ECLSS (Environmental Control and Life Support System) Water Recycling System (WRS). For more information about water and the ISS, read the NASA article “Water on the Space Station.”

The sole-source, fixed-price contact would gain Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems upwards of $65 million from now to September 30, 2014. However, on the downside, if the equipment does not work properly, NASA is not out any money, for the contracting company bares all the cost and responsibility for its equipment.

Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for Space Operations states, "This is a fundamental shift in the way we do business. In the business arrangement we have negotiated for water production services, the contractor is responsible for all system development and performance. The only requirements we have imposed are those associated with safety and interfaces. This provides a procurement and technology test bed for future exploration systems, which need to operate in an environment far from Earth, where routine resupply is not feasible."

According to the NASA statement, the equipment provided by the company is based on a chemical process called the “Sabatier reaction.” Named after French chemist Paul Sabatier (1854-1941), it uses the process (discovered by Sabatier) in which hydrogen and carbon dioxide produces methane and water at high temperatures and pressures.

Read more about the Sabatier reaction at “Methods of Water Production,” provided by Oregon State University.

NASA will be testing the equipment on mission STS-130, which is scheduled to launch no earlier than October 2009, with the space shuttle Discovery. The Hamilton Sundstrand equipment will be further tested later in 2010.

NASA is trying to produce more water on the International Space Station because bringing water to the Station from Earth is very expensive.

Currently, about one-half of the water used on the ISS (for drinking, oxygen generation, personal hygiene, food preparation, etc.) is produced through recycling. The other half of the water is transported up to the Station from Earth by space shuttle flights or cargo ships from Russia (RSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA).

Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems International is a subsidiary of Hamilton Sundstrand. HSSSI is NASA's largest contractor in the New England region of the United States, and provides a large number of systems for the Space Shuttle fleet and the International Space Station.

[Author’s comment: This is a very good trend, if it is indeed a trend, with NASA’s contracts. Rather than awarding money for “failures” within its contractor base, it is only awarding money for “successes” with this contract.

A classic example of the former can be found in the Morton Thiokol contract for the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) within the space shuttle program. Read about it at “Doomed from the Beginning: The Solid Rocket Boosters for the Space Shuttle” at The University of Texas at Austin (Texas Grant Consortium).]

This article is based on the NASA Contract Release article “NASA Awards Space Station Water Contract to Hamilton Sundstrand.”