[FPSPACE] ISS water recycler clogged with astronaut's high-calcium concentrated urine

[Peter Pesavento]

>From the UK Telegraph

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6977252/Astronauts-urine-clogs-spac
e-station-water-recycler.html

 


Astronauts' urine clogs space station water recycler 


Astronauts' urine is clogging the £150 million water recycling system on the
International Space Station, Nasa scientists said. 


Published: 10:12PM GMT 12 Jan 2010

Engineers investigating a problem with the system, which processes urine
into clean water for drinking, said they believed the cause for the back-up
was a high concentration of calcium in the astronauts' urine.

Scientists do not yet know if the high calcium concentration is due to bone
loss, a consequence of living in a zero-gravity environment, or other
factors.

"We've learned a lot more about urine than we ever needed or wanted to know
- some of us anyway," said David Korth, the station flight director.

The £62 billion space station project involving 16 nations has been under
construction 220 miles above the Earth for more than a decade.

Before the urine recycler was started up in November 2008, it was fully
tested by Nasa.

"Folks had good knowledge of the content of the urine going in, but the
chemistry changes as it works through the processor are not always
understood," said Julie Robinson, a scientist working on the project. "There
are a lot of parameters including urine calcium and pH (acidity) that
everyone is looking at."

Engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, are
hoping to come up with a fix in time to fly replacement parts out on the
shuttle Endeavour, which is scheduled for launch on Feb 7 on a construction
mission. 

 

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