Astronauts find way to repair glitches in urine recycler

Flight controllers on Sunday told space station commander Michael Fincke a centrifuge is mounted on the urine recycler and asked him to remove all the mounts, which could make the water regeneration system start, the US space agency said.

“Fantastic! That is something we can do,” Fincke is said to have told Mission Control.

NASA, which sent the machine to the station to prepare for its crew to grow from three members to six next year, expects the machine to work well enough for astronauts to bring back batches of purified water for analysis when shuttle Endeavour returns to Earth next week.

The shuttle has been at the station since Sunday to deliver more than seven tonnes of cargo to support an expanded crew. In addition to the water recycling gear, the astronauts delivered two new sleeping compartments, a second toilet, a galley and more exercise equipment.

Last year, NASA discovered one of the two joints was contaminated with metal filings and as a result a complicated series of spacewalks had to be designed to fix the problem and prevent it from happening to the other joint.