Status Report on ANITA2 – The European Programme on High Performance Air Monitoring of ISS Trace Gas Contamination and Gas Concentration Dynamics

The advanced air monitor ANITA (Analysing Interferometer for Ambient Air) accomplished a highly successful mission, operating for 11 months on ISS in 2007 and 2008. Detecting simultaneously 32 gases, ANITA could provide new findings in the behaviour and dynamics of crewed cabin air. The successor system ANITA2 is now in a preliminary design and planning phase. ANITA2 considers the lessons learned cycles with ANITA leading to different approaches for an improved system definition. ANITA noise effects could be simulated on ground in the laboratory enabling the engineers to design a system avoiding the observed noise. The design for the successor unit ANITA2 will thus benefit from these on-ground findings. The next mission is planned for five years of automatic operation on ISS, where the system relatively easily can be accommodated, since it consumes nothing but power. ANITA2 is (like ANITA) suggested to be an ESA-NASA cooperative programme, where ESA is responsible for the provision of the system, the data acquisition, and gas analyses. NASA’s responsibilities could be launch, accommodation, operation, and final use of the data. ANITA2 also represents a precursor system for missions e.g. to Moon and Mars under the manned exploration programme.