Photo: NASA
Humans will soon be heading out into the solar system in much greater numbers than ever before, and plans are for some of them to settle on other worlds in our vicinity on a semi-permanent basis. The glory and excitement of upcoming space missions is however overshadowed by the knowledge humans will literally trash the places they’ll go to.
The leader of the space expansion effort, NASA, knows this, and has announced in recent times a series of programs aimed at finding solutions to store, reuse, or dispose of the trash astronauts will generate, at first on the Moon, and later on Mars and elsewhere. Yet, the Trash Compaction and Processing System (TCPS) we're going to read about here might just very well be the first tangible solution to the problem, and it's getting closer to becoming a reality.
The TCPS is, as the name says, a trash compactor meant to handle waste management, storage, and water reclamation in long-term space missions. As with any compactor, its main purpose is to reduce the volume of trash by pressing it together, but it adds on top of that the ability to recover all of the water found in the said trash for it to be reused.
That's a capability no other waste system used in space has, and certainly something no Earth-based compactor can do. And it might be a real game changer, considering how water is one of the most precious resources there are.
The TCPS is being developed by Sierra Space as a stand-alone piece of technology that will only need to be connected to power, data, and air-cooling interfaces to work.
The thing comprises a catalytic oxidizer (CatOx) to process volatile organic compounds and other gaseous byproducts of trash and remove contaminants. The raw material the piece of technology needs to work is squeezed into solid square tiles, a shape chosen to make them easier to store and move. Whatever water results from this operation is recovered.
NASA went for the Sierra Space design after the company completed the initial phase of the project in early 2024. It was the culmination of work that began all the way back in 2019.
The company is presently in the process of wrapping up the fabrication and integration of the hardware in a configuration that will be used for tests here on Earth. If everything checks out, a space trash compactor will be transported to the International Space Station (ISS) In 2026 for tests in actual zero g.
NASA plans to send the first batch of astronauts of the Artemis program to the surface of the Moon in 2026. The space agency is also working on building a space station in lunar orbit, and there are plans of establishing a more permanent presence on the surface of the satellite, in preparation for a potential crewed flight to Mars.
The TCPS is, as the name says, a trash compactor meant to handle waste management, storage, and water reclamation in long-term space missions. As with any compactor, its main purpose is to reduce the volume of trash by pressing it together, but it adds on top of that the ability to recover all of the water found in the said trash for it to be reused.
That's a capability no other waste system used in space has, and certainly something no Earth-based compactor can do. And it might be a real game changer, considering how water is one of the most precious resources there are.
The TCPS is being developed by Sierra Space as a stand-alone piece of technology that will only need to be connected to power, data, and air-cooling interfaces to work.
The thing comprises a catalytic oxidizer (CatOx) to process volatile organic compounds and other gaseous byproducts of trash and remove contaminants. The raw material the piece of technology needs to work is squeezed into solid square tiles, a shape chosen to make them easier to store and move. Whatever water results from this operation is recovered.
NASA went for the Sierra Space design after the company completed the initial phase of the project in early 2024. It was the culmination of work that began all the way back in 2019.
The company is presently in the process of wrapping up the fabrication and integration of the hardware in a configuration that will be used for tests here on Earth. If everything checks out, a space trash compactor will be transported to the International Space Station (ISS) In 2026 for tests in actual zero g.
NASA plans to send the first batch of astronauts of the Artemis program to the surface of the Moon in 2026. The space agency is also working on building a space station in lunar orbit, and there are plans of establishing a more permanent presence on the surface of the satellite, in preparation for a potential crewed flight to Mars.
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