Live in Orbit: Crew Tackles Trouble

The commander of the International Space Station is setting out to troubleshoot start-up problems with a newly delivered Urine Processing Assembly -- a critical part of a new water treatment system deemed key to plans to expand the size of resident crews on the outpost next spring.

Expedition 18 commander Michael Fincke will hard-mount a centrifuge within the assembly, which is designed to convert urine, condensate and perspiration into water. The idea is to remove vibration dampers that may inadvertently be causing the centrifuge to shut down after short periods of operation.

The recycling system is expected to reduce by 65 perscent the amount of water that would otherwise have to be delivered to the station once crew size is increased to six from three next May. It must be operating properly for NASA and its 14 international partners to proceed with the plan to double crew size -- a long-awaited station assembly milestone important to increasing the amount of research that can be done on the outpost.

Engineers estimate that it takes the equivalent of 2.5 crew members just to maintain the outpost and keep it operating in low Earth orbit. The crew expansion, consequently, will greatly increase the human resources that can be applied to research experiments on the station.

The troubleshooting work is expected to take about two-and-a-half hours to complete.

The Endeavour astronauts, meanwhile, are taking a half-day off in orbit. Then they'll get back to working transferring equipment between the station and the shuttle. Take a look at their detailed timelines here: Flight Day 10 Execute Package.

The astronauts also will take part in a space-to-ground round of media interviews at 4:05 p.m. EST. The event will be webcast live here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the NASA TV box on the righthand side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer and round-the-clock coverage of the STS-126 mission.

The dates and times for milestone events are list in this latest revision -- Rev I -- of the STS-126 NASA TV schedule: NASA TV Schedule.