Where does the water that astronauts drink in space come from?

Someone asked similar questions on almost every space mission.

In the first space teaching ground class on the China Space Station held not long ago, some students asked how to solve the problem of drinking water and oxygen.

　　Shenzhou 13 astronaut Ye Guangfu revealed that the food used in space has been delivered to the Chinese space station by "space express" in the early stage, and the domestic water comes from recycled water. The space station is equipped with a water regeneration system to achieve recycling.

　　Behind this, it is inseparable from the guarantee of the China Space Station's super "purifier"-the environmental control and urine preservation processing subsystem. This system can extract 5 liters of distilled water from 6 liters of urine, with a maximum water production rate of 2.5 liters per hour. The reclaimed water purified by the distilled water through the water treatment subsystem can meet the needs of cleaning and oxygen production for astronauts working in the space station for a long time.

　　The average age of the system development team is 33 years old. It is such a young team from the 206 Institute of the Second Academy of Aerospace Science and Technology of China. It took 10 years to bring dreams into reality, and successfully developed purification equipment above the stars, allowing China Aerospace It is possible for personnel to stay in space for a long time.

　　Pioneer

　　On April 29, 2021, the Long March 5B Yao-2 launch vehicle carried the space station sky and core module into the sky, drawing a bright arc along the sky.

While countless people were cheering for the "Chinese Power", the hearts of the members of the Environmental Control and Life Insurance Team of the 206 Space Station of the Second Academy were still hanging.

　　Until June 24, the news of success came from Xingchenzhi. The environmental control and urine preservation treatment subsystem developed by them successfully completed the first urine recovery, and realized the on-orbit recycling of water resources in the China Space Station, and the distilled water produced All indicators meet the requirements of use.

　　Some experts said that in order to allow astronauts to stay in the space station for a long time, it is necessary to solve the "source of life"-water problem, otherwise, the construction of the Chinese own space laboratory will be impossible to talk about.

　　In 2012, the space station still had more than ten key technologies that were blank in China, including the issue of urine processing in the environmental control and life protection system.

It was also that year that the 206 Institute of the Second Academy began to get involved in the space field and won the bid for the development of the system, starting its own "Long March".

　　Bai Pengying, deputy director of the 206 Institute, said that at that time everything had to start from scratch. Faced with the long life, high reliability and technical challenges of space products, such as mechanical, electrical, gas, liquid, and thermal, the development team began to develop 10 years of technological breakthroughs.

　　"Space station urine processing technology is an internationally recognized technical problem, and it is also one of the key technologies for my country's space station construction. Due to the technical blockade, there is basically no reference to technical data." said Li Jiandong, deputy chief of the Science and Technology Committee of the 206 Institute.

　　As the technical leader of the environmental protection and urine preservation processing subsystem, he led the team to develop a technical solution suitable for microgravity environments.

　　"At that time, we made seven or eight prototypes, from prototypes to engineering products, through hundreds of rounds of tests, and finally solved the sealing problem." Li Jiandong said.

　　After ten years of sharpening his sword, Li Jiandong led the team to achieve a breakthrough of "from 0 to 1", witnessing the difficult transformation of the environmental control and urine preservation treatment subsystem from a prototype to a formal product.

　　youth

　　Liang Yingbin, a young man born in the 80s who joined the team in 2015, has now grown into the mainstay of the team.

He solved the problems of the system's final assembly integration, rotating parts wear and corrosion, and high-reliability disconnection, which greatly improved the life of the product.

　　In June 2020, a test site implemented closed management. Zhang Yuxiang, a young designer on duty there, stayed in place. After more than 10 hours of testing a day, he slept on a camp bed and ate instant noodles most often. Hear a complaint from him.

　　Young designer Han Yuming told reporters that for more than 50 days during the pre-simulation test at a certain test site, he and several colleagues including Wang Tianbao were on duty to observe the operation of the urine processing subsystem in the monitoring room.

In fact, every shift for more than ten hours, the data on the computer screen often does not show any abnormality. After the shift, they have to get busy. They need to summarize and analyze the data during this period.

　　More than 50 days later, the moment they stepped out of the working building, the afternoon sun shone on their faces, and Han Yuming suddenly felt, "We seem to have done a particularly great thing."

　　The urine processing subsystem involves a large amount of consumable materials, and the team conducted a ground scale test for this.

The only female member who joined the team in 2018, Li Xiaodan, took 13 months and processed more than 30,000 liters of sample water with colleagues Kan Chunlei, Zhan Deli, etc., and required water samples, sampling, testing, and analysis multiple times a day. And records, they dig out rules from hundreds of pages of data, which provides an important basis for the on-orbit replacement cycle of products.

　　At the beginning of 2021, on the eve of the launch mission, the critical period of the system's comprehensive experiment coincided with the "car crash" during the Spring Festival holiday.

At this time, the team members were distributed in Hainan Wenchang Launching Site, Tianjin Large Spacecraft AIT Center, and Beijing Astronaut Training Center. They were divided into three mission lines to work at the same time. There were faults in any link of product design, technology, and inspection. Will cause the postponement of the launch mission.

　　In order to ensure the continuous operation of the test, the team members unanimously gave up the opportunity to reunite with their relatives and stayed at their posts on New Year's Eve.

In the end, after the young faces worked overtime for many days and nights, the product samples were delivered as scheduled.

　　Bai Pengying said that in the past 10 years, it has been difficult for team members to find the youthfulness and immaturity of that year. What is left is the tenacity, belief in overcoming obstacles and courage to face difficulties after the wind and rain of Chinese astronauts.

Now, this young team set sail again on the journey of the stars and the sea.

　　Zhao Sen, China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter Qiu Chenhui Source: China Youth Daily