The International Space Station (ISS), where space explorers from around the world conduct their research, has taken more than a dozen missions on board for its 20-year existence. Since each such mission lasts more than one month, the station for the astronaut becomes not just a place of work, but even temporary, but a place of residence. It is not surprising that a person is trying to equip his life in space, to make it as comfortable as on Earth, equipping it with the necessary household appliances.
It turns out that some household devices for operation in space already exist, although they differ from earthly ones. One of them is a refrigerator. The BH-3 refrigerator is provided for the Russian cosmonauts at the ISS, which is an analogue of the onboard refrigerator of the MIR orbital station from the time of the USSR. The refrigerator has compartments for storing special tubes with a diet, as well as natural products. To prevent food from “floating away” during the opening of the refrigerator, all compartments are covered with special ribbons of fabric, on which hooks are additionally attached. What is unusual is that there are no doors in the refrigerator. To get to the contents, you need to open the lid.
American astronauts do not have a full fridge for storing food. Instead, they use freezers that provide the lowest possible temperatures for storing different crops grown directly in space. For example, the GLACIER refrigerator maintains temperature conditions from –160 ° C to +4 ° C, and its volume is 20 liters. For the first time, it was delivered to the station back in 2012 with the Dragon spaceship. And, perhaps, it is not a full-fledged device for cooling food, but it is a great place to store such goodies as ice cream.
But the washing machine for space is still under development. This became known in March of this year. True, no technical details of the future washer have been disclosed. It is only known that the employees of the Rocket and Space Corporation Energia named after him are working on its creation. Queen. Most likely, water obtained from human vital products that previously passed through the regeneration system will be used for its work.
But the Americans in this regard have moved much further. Even 9 years ago, NASA asked UMPQUA to create a washer-dryer for use in space. Already after 6 years, the prototype of such an AMCILS machine was tested in a special laboratory under microgravity conditions.
The report on the research and the scheme of the UMPQUA washer-dryer itself was published in 2017, causing great interest from journalists and developers of large home appliances.
It turned out that the space washer differs from the earthly one not only in appearance, but also in the principle of action. So, in the “unearthly” model there is not only a drum, but also a heating element. Things are placed in a special airtight compartment with water. The rotating moment is provided by the activator, which is located at the bottom of the compartment, and a special moving plunger is responsible for the clothes spinning stage. In the space washer, as in the microwave, a magnetron is provided. It is he who performs the function of thermal exposure, instead of the usual TEN.
The AMCILS washing cycle consists of three main steps: washing clothes, first rinsing and final rinsing. At the same time, the washing machine can save water consumption, since a fresh portion of it is supplied to the washing machine only for the final rinse of each batch of loaded laundry. Water after the first rinsing of one batch of clothes is reused for the subsequent washing cycle of the second batch. Similarly, water after the second rinse of one batch is used for the first rinse of the second batch of laundry.
In the meantime, space inhabitants simply pack dirty laundry and put it in a special transport ship, which, after coming off orbit, burns out along with its contents in the atmosphere.
In addition to individual household appliances and appliances, designers are working on the creation of entire residential modules. The developers are sure that the cosmonauts will be much more comfortable in them not only to study space, but also to engage in their usual “earthly” concerns.