This
story was updated at 4:59 p.m. EST.
NASA
astronauts and engineers are tackling an odd glitch with a new recycling system
designed to convert astronaut urine and sweat back into drinking water aboard
the International Space Station, flight controllers said Friday.
Efforts to run
the first batch of urine through station's new Water Recovery System to test its
ability to filter
and purify water from the waste have hit repeated roadblocks over the last
few days, station flight director Courtenay McMillan said in an afternoon
update.
When
commands were sent through the $250 million system's Urine Processor Assembly
to begin filtering urine late Thursday, an alarm sounded that sent station
astronauts hunting for any signs of smoke or fire. It was a false, and
unexpected, alarm that was even heard via radio by spacewalkers
working outside the station.
The urine
processer was activated for about two hours today, but shut down unexpectedly. The
problem could be due to a sensor glitch or the more serious malfunction of a
vital centrifuge motor used in one of the first steps of urine distillation,
McMillan said.
"Right now,
folks are still looking at the data," McMillan said. "They're really still
investigating and determining forward steps."
Meanwhile,
engineers hope to continue efforts to test the recycling system's ability to
collect wastewater and condensed sweat from the space station's atmosphere and
filter it into drinking water.
The water
recycling system is part of a bounty of new life support and living equipment
delivered to the International Space Station this week aboard
NASA's shuttle Endeavour. A second kitchen, extra bathroom, new gym
equipment, a space food refrigerator and two spare bedrooms were also hauled to
the station aboard Endeavour.
NASA flight
controllers are weighing whether to extend Endeavour's planned 15-day mission
by one extra day to allow more time to troubleshoot the water recycling glitch.
Endeavour is currently slated to leave the space station on Thanksgiving Day
and land Nov. 29.
"We are hoping
that we can try again today just to get some more time with the system before
the end of the mission," McMillan said.
Endeavour's
seven-astronaut crew was slated to continue moving supplies into the station
today. All 10 astronauts aboard both spacecraft spoke with reporters on Earth
this afternoon, with the shuttle crew also scheduled to take about and hour off
later in the day.
The
astronauts also used Endeavour's engines to boost the space station's orbit a
mile higher to prepare for the planned Nov. 30 arrival of a Russian cargo ship.
Water
in, water out
The water
recycler is a key component in plans by NASA and its station partners to
boost the orbital laboratory's population from the current three-astronaut
crews to six-person expeditions capable of performing more science and
maintenance. That shift is slated for May 2009, but only if the water recycler
and other key systems are online, mission managers have said.
If it works
as designed, the system is expected to drastically reduce the amount of water
that has to shipped to the station aboard NASA shuttles or Russian, European
and, eventually, Japanese spacecraft.
The system
is designed to recover about 93 percent of the initial wastewater fed into it and
could reduce the amount of water hauled aboard or generated by visiting
spacecraft by 15,000 pounds (6,803 kg) per year, mission managers have said.
The resulting water can then be reused for drinking, food preparation or
bathing. It could also be piped through the station's U.S. oxygen generator to
produce new air.
Water
recovered through the system is filtered through a seven-step process and meets
most municipal water safety standards in the U.S., said Bob Bagdigian, NASA's
project manager for the station's environmental control and life support system
before launch.
Glitches
expected
NASA's
Mission Control fully expected to encounter glitches while activating the new
water recycling system. When the oxygen
generator was first delivered in 2006, it took several false starts before
the equipment was up and running, space station flight director Ginger Kerrick
said late Thursday.
"These are
growing pains we expected to see," she said. "These are very complicated pieces
of equipment with a very complicated software system to control them, and this
is the first time they are all being put together in space. So it takes a while
to learn lessons from that."
Kerrick
said there is ample time in the Endeavour crew's schedule to troubleshoot the
urine processor glitch while continuing tests on the regular wastewater side of
the system. That part of the system can feed potable water through a local
tank or feed it to a portable water dispenser on the station's new galley.
Mission
managers hope to return samples from each stage of the water recycling system,
including the urine processor, back to Earth aboard Endeavour to begin quality
control studies. Several months of additional testing and monitoring aboard the
station after Endeavour's flight will also be required before the system will
be clear for human consumption, NASA officials have said.
"Right now,
we can incorporate about a 24-hour delay in the tasks that we had planned in
the timeline and still be able - assuming everything else goes nominally - to
accomplish our sampling objectives," Kerrick said. "We think this is just a
small setback."
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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