Live In Orbit: Water System Hooked Up

The Endeavour astronauts are zooming through a home improvement project at the International Space Station as NASA sets the stage for doubling the staff on the outpost next spring.

New crew quarters were installed in the U.S. Harmony module today, and a new water treatment system is being hooked up in the U.S. Destiny laboratory by Expedition 18 commander Mike Fincke and flight engineer Sandra Magnus.

You can watch the action unfold right here in The Flame Trench. Simply click the NASA TV box on the righthand side of this page to launch our NASA TV viewer and round-the-clock coverage of STS-126.

With Endeavour and the station linked 213 miles above Earth, shuttle mission specialists Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper and Shane Kimbrough are preparing to venture outside the outpost on Thursday to continue repairs to a critical solar wing rotary system.

Space grease guns will be used to lubricate a gummed-up mechanism designed to turn the station's starboard solar wing like a paddlewheel so it can track the sun and maximize power output.

A tool bag with two spares inadvertently floated off during a spacewalk Tuesday, so the astronauts can ill-afford to let another get away.

"We’re definitely not going to do it again," Stefanyshyn-Piper said during a space-to-ground media interview earlier today. "You’re not going to see us lose another bag."

The Endeavour astronauts also are equipping the station for an expansion next spring. Crew size will double to six people.

Two new sleep stations were hauled into the station Tuesday and the astronauts set up a new treatment system that will convert urine and sweat into drinking water.

The system will be tested over the next 90 days, and if all goes well, it will reduce the amount of water that must be delivered annually by about 65 percent.

That's 743 gallons, or about 6,196 pounds, per year. The average cost of launching a pound of payload to low Earth orbit is about $10,000. Cost savings as a result: $62 million per year.

Stefanyshyn-Piper and Kimbrough will head outside the station at 1:45 p.m. Thursday for the second of four spacewalks planned during Endeavour's stay at the station.

The two plan to reposition two mobile rail carts on the station's central truss and continue repairs to the faulty solar wing wheel. They also aim to make certain tools stay safely tethered in the weightless working environment outside the station.

Said Stefanyshyn-Piper: "We're going to double and triple check everything from here on out."