WASHINGTON
- Astronauts aboard NASA's shuttle Endeavour and the International Space
Station said Friday that their joint mission is going well despite glitches
with a new recycling system built to convert urine and sweat into drinking
water.
The 10 astronauts
aboard the station and docked shuttle have passed the midpoint of their mission to install the water
recycling system and a host of new gear needed to double the orbiting lab's crew
size next summer.
"It's just
been a wonderful time up here," Endeavour commander Chris Ferguson told
reporters Friday via a space-to-ground video link. "It's a great time serving
with this crew."
Busy
spaceflight
Ferguson
and six crewmates launched
toward the station on Nov. 14 carrying a new crewmember and the water
recycling system, as well as two spare bedrooms, a second kitchen, extra
bathroom and new gym equipment.
The
astronauts have also performed two of four spacewalks to clean metal grit from
a solar array-rotating gear on the station's starboard side. The only major
hitches have come from a lost tool bag in a Tuesday spacewalk - which prompted
a flurry of changes for subsequent excursions - and issues testing the water
recycling system's urine
processing capabilities.
"We're very
hopeful that we can still get the first round of samples through during this
mission while the STS-126 [crew] and Endeavour are still here," station skipper
Michael Fincke said of the water recycler. "We're not
worried so far and we've got the right team up here if we need any fixes."
NASA
engineers now believe they've traced the issue to the possible contact of an
internal component with a vital motor that turns a centrifuge at the start of
the urine distillation process. They're hopeful the system can be activated soon
so samples can be collected and returned to Earth when Endeavour lands Nov. 29.
Fincke
said he's eager to get the system up and running, despite its squeamish
reputation.
"Actually,
it goes through such a process, it's no longer urine whatsoever," Fincke said. "It's probably purer than most people's tap
water, so I'm not afraid to drink it."
Turkey
day in space
The joint
station-shuttle crew marked the space
station's 10th anniversary on Thursday and plan to celebrate Thanksgiving
together next week.
Since
Endeavour is slated to undock Thanksgiving morning, the 10 astronauts may mark
the U.S. holiday a day early for a traditional dinner of pre-packaged turkey,
cornbread dressing, green beans, cranberry-apple desert and other space foods
as a united crew, Ferguson said.
In addition
to the new hardware, Endeavour also ferried American astronaut Sandra Magnus to
the space station, where she's replaced fellow NASA spaceflyer
Greg Chamitoff as a member of the orbiting lab's
three-person crew.
"Life on
the space station is great," said Magnus, who last visited a much smaller
version of the outpost in 2002 and will spend the next few months aboard. "This
place is absolutely huge!"
Chamitoff,
meanwhile, said he's excited to return to Earth aboard Endeavour after nearly six
months aboard the station and has already had a little taste of home.
"We don't
have cold water," Chamitoff said, adding that a new
cooler delivered by Endeavour hasn't been hooked up yet. "The shuttle brought
up some cold water, so last night I actually went over for my first cold drink
in six months. That was really great."
Chamitoff
said he's been thinking about his wife and twin toddlers more often, but is
also eager to chow down on a pizza after he lands. He hopes to wash it down
with a Diet Coke and some rocky road ice cream.
Of
Endeavour's seven-astronaut crew, three are making their first spaceflight but
all are enjoying the wonders of weightlessness.
Mission
specialist Don Pettit, who previously lived aboard the station for more than
five months, said floating in space outweighs even the views of the Earth from
orbit, since the planet is beautiful on the ground as well.
"That's one
of the most wonderful aspects about this place," Pettit said. "We can see
really good views of Earth from Earth. We can't fly."
NASA is
providing live coverage of Endeavour's STS-126 mission on NASA TV. Click here for SPACE.com's
mission coverage and NASA TV feed.
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