Advanced Microbial Monitoring System for Space Flight Applications

A critical danger of space flight programs is contamination of the spacecraft environment. Assessing environmental health requires monitoring technologies to mitigate the risk of infectious disease among the crew before, during, and after flights. The danger of infectious diseases in space is amplified by the limited medical facilities available to the crew during a mission. The contained spacecraft environment also increases the likelihood of spreading disease-causing microbes among the crew with potentially catastrophic results. This risk is compounded on missions that utilize reclaimed water. Active, in-flight microbial measurement is required to protect the health of the crew and their environment. The challenge is that any microbial measurement system must address physical and operational limitations imposed by space flight. The Luna Innovations team proposes to develop a system to meet the challenge of microbial monitoring in space. The proposed system utilizes Luna's patented interferometric biosensor technology with novel reagents and Luna's space qualified optical fiber support electronics expertise to monitor microbial contamination. Luna has previously demonstrated biosensors with affinity films for the detection of biological samples, chemicals, and metal ions and will use this experience to ensure near-term market penetration of the proposed system.