Clean Room

A clean room is a controlled environment, common in space projects for manufacturing and scientific research. E-USOC accommodates a 21 m2 clean room complemented with a gray room (anteroom) and a service chamber used to insert/remove material into/from the room. This clean room is mainly used to host the Engineering Model (EM) of experiments in the International Space Station (ISS), along the experiment preparation and operation phases.

The clean room aims to keep an inside atmosphere between 22 and 24 Celsius degrees and a relative humidity of 50%. In order to achieve these objectives, the climate control equipment provides 10 kW cooling power and 8 kW heating power. The contamination control equipment features a 98 % efficiency first-stage filters and a 99.995 % efficiency HEPA filters in the last stage. Furthermore, to avoid outside air to enter into the clean room, the system provides overpressure; if there are any leaks, air leaks out of the chamber instead of unfiltered air coming in.

Entrance to the clean room is secured by electronic controlled access system. Staff is required to wear protective clothing such as hoods, boots and overalls before entering the clean room.