Intravenous Fluid Generation Mini (IVGEN Mini) Summary and Related Research

This paper assists the ongoing effort to support NASA Glenn’s mission and its Human Research Program (HRP) core competency by investigating a technology demonstration to mitigate human health and performance risks during space exploration. Crew health and performance are critical to successful human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. Four hundred forty-two medical conditions have been identified and may present and require treatment during long-duration space exploration missions. One hundred fifteen out of four hundred forty-two identified medical conditions would require medical fluid treatment, generating a need for an on-demand or continuous supply of medical fluid. Intravenous Fluid Generation Mini (IVGEN Mini) is a technology demonstration designed to demonstrate a water purification and pharmaceutical mixing system that can make intravenous (IV) fluid in microgravity and builds on the success of the original Intravenous Fluid Generation for Exploration Missions (IVGEN) experiment, which flew on the ISS in March 2010. IVGEN Mini seeks to increase the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) and the overall function of the original IVGEN experiment to reduce the dependence of a needed medical consumable and streamline the size of the device and process to generate IV fluid IVGEN Mini is funded by the Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) directorate via the Exploration Medical Integrated Product Team (XMIPT) as a part of their mission to advance exploration medical technologies to benefit the overall health and safety of crews for beyond low Earth orbit space missions. This paper discusses a collection of related research topics such as microgravity fluid mixing and studying past efforts of IV fluid usage in extreme environments to aid IVGEN Mini project scientists in developing the IVGEN Mini technology.