NASA Advanced Explorations Systems: Concepts for Logistics to Living

The NASA Advanced Exploration Systems Logistics Reduction and Repurposing project strives to enable a largely mission-independent cradle-to-grave-to-cradle approach to minimize logistics contributions to total mission architecture mass. This paper addresses the work being done in the realm of direct repurposing of logistics components to meet other onorbit needs through a strategy termed Logistics to Living (L2L). L2L has several areas but can be defined as repurposing or converting logistical items (bags, containers, foam, components, etc.) into useful crew items or life support augmentation on-orbit after the items have provided their primary logistics function. The intent is that by repurposing items, dedicated crew items do not have to be launched, thus overall launch mass is decreased. For non-low-Earth-orbit missions, it is envisioned that the vehicle interior volume will be relatively fixed so L2L will also enable this volume to be used more effectively through reuse and rearrangement of logistical components.