Within the Environmental Chemistry Laboratory (ECL) in Building 21 at Johnson Space Center (JSC), the Gas Lab’s primary goal is to ensure that astronauts onboard ISS, Commercial Crew, and Artemis vehicles are breathing clean air. Not only that, if you have used compressed breathing air at JSC, Sonny Carter Training Facility, or Ellington Field, there’s a good chance that it passed through the ECL and was tested for suitability there as well.

Starting off primarily to verify the safety of breathing air for the Apollo program, the Gas Lab also supported the development of flight and ground support hardware that used other gases, such as nitrogen. Over time the Gas Lab began supporting new programs as they developed, such as Shuttle and ISS, and their collaboration spread to other centers, such as Kennedy Space Center (KSC), White Sands, and Ellington Field.

Bill King and Allen Janeczko are the chemists in the Gas Lab, and they employ several technologies including Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy hardware to detect trace contaminants and Gas Chromatography (GC) to determine gas purity.

Recently, the Gas Lab performed high-profile tasks for NASA that required the team to act swiftly. For example, due to issues with two umbilicals slated to be used at the Orion Life Support Integration Facility (OLIF), they performed an expedited analysis to prevent delays in shipping to KSC and Orion crew training while also confirming that siloxane contaminates were below an acceptable level. In another request, the lab performed an analysis to assist Ellington Field in the investigation of a decompression sickness incident that occurred during a research flight. Additionally, the Gas Lab supported the Crew and Thermal Systems Division in Building 7 when the nitrogen storage tank required recertification after a system failure forced a work stoppage in the Space System Suit Lab (SSSL) where they use nitrogen for critical suit testing. After recertification, the Gas Lab verified the nitrogen quality to bring the SSSL back online.

To increase the lab’s responsiveness and efficiency, the group pursues continuous process improvement. One such improvement was the development of an alternate method of measuring water in small containers like the Shuttle-era Grab Sample Containers (GSCs) using a hygrometer instead of GC. This method will be used to confirm water measurements during future carbon dioxide removal technology development.

The Gas Lab has been a critical resource for NASA for many years and has proven that the expertise and dedication of the team will continue.