Work

Chemical risk assessment in spaceflight environments and their impacts on crew health

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This investigation offers a cohesive simulation-based platform aimed at quantifying chemical exposure dangers in crewed extraterrestrial travel, specifically addressing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and particulate matter originating from spacecraft subsystems. Custom computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations, executed with both COMSOL Multiphysics and ANSYS Fluent, modeled the microgravity-governed dispersion of these chemicals, revealing model-predicted peak cabin VOC concentrations of 1.8–2.3 ppm in confined zones and particulate concentration maxima of 0.12–0.16 mg/m³. The study characterized hydrazine and heavy metal species qualitatively owing to their rarity in typical mission sets. Molecular docking analyses were carried out using an appropriate docking engine, while PyMOL and ChimeraX were used for structural visualization and interaction analysis. These analyses were used as supportive mechanistic indicators of possible chemical-biomolecular interactions rather than as direct standalone measures of toxicological potency. The observed changes in binding energies of VOC-derived DNA adducts, including a 14–18% decrease relative to reference models, were interpreted together with exposure context and literature-supported toxicological evidence to identify potentially relevant molecular interaction patterns in the spaceflight milieu. Monte Carlo risk analyses forecast model-derived acute exposure probabilities that reach 0.12 for missions of 30 days and escalate to 0.43–0.51 for missions beyond 180 days. The execution of refined cabin ventilation strategies lowered the VOC maxima by 38% and the particulate concentrations by 41%. When these elements were configured within a modular, Python-based monitor, the apparatus delivered exposure forecasts with a 2.4 s latency and 97.8% temporal synchrony, thereby enabling continuous quantification of health risks. The results present a computational decision-support framework, and the reported quantitative outputs should be interpreted within the assumptions and constraints of the simulation models and supporting literature rather than as experimentally validated flight data, allowing mission architects to pre-empt chemical hazards and adaptively deploy countermeasures, thereby augmenting crew safety in long-duration spaceflight.

Source: Discover Chemistry.

DOI: 10.1007/s44371-026-00986-x