ANALYSIS OF WATER FROM THE SPACE-SHUTTLE AND MIR-SPACE-STATION BY IONCHROMATOGRAPHY AND CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORESIS

Drinking water and condensate samples collected from the US Space Shut tle and the Russian Mir Space Station are analyzed routinely at the NA SA-Johnson Space Center as part of an ongoing effort io verify water q uality and monitor the environment of the spacecraft. Water quality mo nitoring is particularly important for the Mir water supply because ap proximately half of the water consumed is recovered fr om humidity con densate. Drinking water on Shuttle is derived from the fuel cells. Bec ause there is little equipment on board the spacecraft for monitoring the water quality, samples collected by the crew are transported to Ea rth on Shuttle or Soyuz vehicles, and analyzed exhaustively. As part o f the test battery, anions and cations are measured by ion chromatogra phy, and carboxylates and amines by capillary electrophoresis. Analyti cal data from Shuttle water samples collected before and after several missions, and Mir condensate and potable recovered water samples repr esenting several recent missions are presented and discussed. Results show that Shuttle water is of distilled quality, and Mir recovered wat er contains various levels of minerals imparted during the recovery pr ocesses as designed. Organic ions are rarely detected in potable water samples, but were present in humidity condensate samples. (C) 1998 El sevier Science B.V.