This will also be an issue for lunar and Mars spaceflight vehicles, space suits, and surface habitats. The Gateway’s Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) module and low-Earth orbit (LEO) Freeflyer habitats are currently working to solve this problem.
In the Orion vehicle, additional duct mufflers needed to be added to address the cabin fan noise. In the early years of International Space Station (ISS) operations, acoustical noise was one of the top two habitability issues, resulting in significant noise controls (along with significant cost and crew-time impacts) being implemented on-orbit on many fans, with significant noise reductions realized only after replacing noisy fans with fans of a quieter design, funded by the ISS Program.Īnd, with the spaceflight vehicles and habitats currently being developed, there are again concerns with noise levels from ventilation fans. On the Space Shuttle the ventilation system underwent significant redesign, including the addition of ventilation system mufflers, with resulting noise levels that were still too-high for long-duration missions. In the Apollo Command Module (CM) the crew would turn off the CM cabin fan once in orbit and use the backup suit-loop fan for ventilation because noise from the cabin fan interfered with communications and was an annoyance. Throughout the history of crewed spaceflight, there have been issues with noise from ECLS ventilation fans. Thermal cooling pumps that circulate cooling fluid are another significant noise source in spaceflight vehicles, but these are outside of the scope of this paper. These include air ventilation fans, such as the main air conditioning fan (the ‘cabin fan’), intermodule ventilation (IMV) fans, air revitalization fans (for removal of carbon dioxide and trace contaminates), and thermal cooling fans. As with most noise control efforts, it is best to control the noise at the source, and for spaceflight vehicles these are typically the fans associated with the Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) system. Quiet Spacecraft Cabin Ventilation Fan Development: Motivation and Context It is important to control acoustical noise aboard crewed space vehicles and space habitats to provide a satisfactory environment for voice communications, alarm audibility, and restful sleep, and to minimize the risk for hearing loss and annoyance.
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