Astronauts aboard the International Space Station used a pair of robot arms to install a pallet of equipment today, but when break-time came they may have found long lines at the bathrooms.
With a record 13 people aboard the station, the main toilet broke down, sending astronauts scrambling to the use backup commodes on the Russian side of the station and aboard the visiting US shuttle Endeavour.
"Put an 'Out-of-Service' note on the WHC (waste and hygiene compartment)," Mission Control's Hal Getselman told a crewmember after a fruitless attempt at repairs.
The commode, which is connected to the station's wastewater-recycling system, had been the crew's main bathroom. Nasa was limiting shuttle toilet use because it cannot dump the wastewater overboard, as is customary during flight. Wastewater dumps could contaminate the station's newly installed platform for science experiments.
The porch-like facility was mounted on the front of the station's Kibo laboratory during a spacewalk yesterday. It will be used to hold experiments that need to be exposed to the open environment of space.
"For right now, having all (shuttle crewmembers) using the shuttle toilet is not going to be an issue," station flight director Brian Smith said. If the toilet cannot be repaired within about six days, it could become a more serious matter, he added. "We don't yet know the extent of the problem," he said.
No experiments are aboard the new platform yet. Those will be installed later during Endeavour'splanned 11-day stay. The crew today transferred a pallet of spare parts over to the station, using robot arms aboard both the shuttle and station.
Nasa also laid out plans today to test the foam on the external fuel tank earmarked for shuttle Discovery'slaunch next month to the space station. Nasa has seven missions after Endeavour'sto complete construction of the $100 billion orbital outpost and retire the shuttle fleet.
Endeavour'stank shed an unusually large amount of the insulating foam in a way not previously seen during shuttle launches.
Nasa redesigned the tanks and implemented inspections after losing shuttle Columbiain 2003 from a foam debris impact during launch. The resulting damage to the heat shield caused the shuttle to break apart as it re-entered the atmosphere for landing. All seven astronauts aboard died in the accident.
Shuttle program manager John Shannon said the pieces of foam lost from Endeavour'stank were tiny compared to the 1 kilo chunk that impacted Columbia's wing.
Endeavour'stank also is believed to have shed most of its debris late during ascent, when aerodynamic forces were too weak to slam the foam into the ship and cause damage.
