Space Station Toilet Broken

"Houston, we have a plumbing problem."

The one and only toilet aboard the International Space Station, which uses air instead of gravity to move the waste, seems to be broken. During normal use last week, the crew reported a strange noise and the fan stopped working. After troubleshooting the problem, astronauts aboard the station first replaced the air/water separator then the filter. While these repairs bought them a little time, the toilet seems to be down again.

See "How to Go to the Bathroom in Space"

This is a big problem for the crew. While there is a toilet aboard the Soyuz craft which always remains attached to the station for emergency evacuations, it has a limited storage capacity, good only for a few days. The next stopgap measure involves technology dating back to the early days of spaceflight, plastic bags with sticky openings. The station does have an emergency supply of these bags.

Currently, NASA plans to include a duplicate toilet, normally used in Houston for training, in the payload aboard Discovery, which is set to launch on Saturday.

In addition to its plumbing mission, Discovery's 14-day flight will carry the largest payload so far to the station and includes three spacewalks. It is the second of three missions that will launch components to complete the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Kibo laboratory. The crew will install Kibo's large Japanese Pressurized Module and Kibo's robotic arm system. Discovery also will deliver new station crew member Greg Chamitoff and bring back Flight Engineer Garrett Reisman, who will end a three-month stay aboard the outpost.

Space shuttle Discovery is in place at NASA Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A and remaining work is on schedule for liftoff May 31 at 5:02 p.m. EDT. The countdown begins today at 3 p.m., counting from the T-43 hour mark. Also today, the seven-member STS-124 crew will arrive at Kennedy to begin final preparations for Saturday's launch.

Image above: "NASA Space Toilet"
Image Credit: NASA