Orbital Syngas Commodity Augmentation Reactor (OSCAR)

The goal of the Orbital Syngas Commodity Augmentation Reactor (OSCAR) project is to study and develop Trash to Gas (TtG) technology in a microgravity environment. This could be implemented on the International Space Station (ISS) and future deep space exploration missions involving long-term human habitation. TtG technology will be used to convert trash and human waste into useful gasses such as methane, hydrogen, water, and carbon dioxide. This will both reduce the spacecraft pressurized volume dedicated for waste storage and provide gaseous commodities that have energy storage and life support applications. As a fall 2018 intern on the OSCAR team at Kennedy Space Center, I helped to prepare the experimental setup for microgravity testing in the drop tower at Glenn Research Center.