Ground Demonstration
Before a technology is qualified for flight, MELiSSA proves it on the ground, at a scale and duration no single space mission could otherwise afford. Two facilities anchor this pillar: the MELiSSA Pilot Plant in Barcelona, and the Concordia research station in Antarctica.
The MELiSSA Pilot Plant, Barcelona
Hosted at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), the Pilot Plant is the closest thing on Earth to a working MELiSSA loop: a chain of connected bioreactors and cultivation chambers, run continuously rather than as isolated experiments. Its compartments include high-density photobioreactors for cyanobacteria and microalgae culture (C3), closed hydroponic chambers for higher-plant cultivation (C4a/C4b), and a crew compartment (C5) where a small-mammal model validates the closed loop end to end: carbon dioxide and urine go in, oxygen and proteins come out.
Continuous, integrated operation of the full biological loop rather than single-process trials, ahead of any equivalent flight demonstration.
The Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, a MELiSSA consortium partner, with ESA.
Concordia research station, Antarctica
Concordia, run jointly by the French and Italian polar institutes, gives MELiSSA something the Pilot Plant cannot: a genuinely isolated, remote crew living with the technology for months at a time. Its grey-water recycling system, derived from MELiSSA research, recovers more than 90% of grey water and has run autonomously for eleven years with almost no maintenance, making it a strong reference point for grey-water systems in hospitals, office buildings and schools on Earth.