Expedition 17 has been having some trouble with the toilet (ASU) in the Zvezda Service Module malfunctioning! It’s been fairly reliable for many years (as far as I know), but has developed some mechanical problems (noted in this NASASpaceflight.com thread):
Russian ASU malfunction: While using the ASU toilet system in the SM, the crew heard a loud noise and the fan stopped working. After some troubleshooting the crew reported that the air/water Separator (MNR-RS) was not working. The crew then replaced the separator with a spare unit but reported afterwards that the ASU lacked suction. The crew next replaced the F-V filter insert, which provided good suction for a while but again exhibited weak suction. TsUP/Moscow instructed the crew to deactivate the ASU and use the toilet facility in the Soyuz spacecraft. (21 May ISS Daily Report)
The Soyuz toilet provides some backup and if all else fails:
Yes, the toilet is working again – but we are holding our breath. There were some spare parts but I do not think they came on the ATV. When this breaks down there is a toilet in the Soyuz but it has limited functionality and is not popular among the crew. There are also Apollo bags (developed on Apollo, just a basic bag). Not very pleasant.
They got the ASU partially working but then it stopped again. Update from the 25/5 ISS Daily Report:
The decision was made today to have the crew R&R the MNR (Micropump Separator) with the last spare they had onboard. Preliminary indications are that the R&R of the MNR has fixed the problem, although specialists continue to monitor the situation. Preparations are in work to fly a replacement MNR on 1J if requested.
There was also a spill of Freon coolant:
The Freon spill (~600 g) occurred on 29/4 after the replacement of the SKV-2 air conditioner compressor. To clean up quickly, the Russian BMP (Russian Harmful Impurities Removal System) was moded to regenerate its absorbent beds every 5 days instead of the regular 20 days. Freon-218 (Octafluoropropane/C3F8, Russian: Khladon) is safe (low toxicity, perhaps some irritation) and noncorrosive if not heated above ~600°C. Primary hazard is oxygen displacement, as witness the Ozone Layer, but there is not enough C3F8 on board the ISS to significantly deplete any atmospheric oxygen.
Replacement parts were sent up on the recent Progress M-64:
Part of its cargo complement includes replacement freon and parts to hopefully allow repair of the Service Module thermal system. If successful, the Russian segment can once again collect condensate and process water to use in the Elektron to provide O2.
The Mars Phoenix Lander successfully landed yesterday at 23:38:44 UTC, (Melbourne time today at 9:38 a.m.) or 23:53:44 UTC as recorded on Earth – it takes 15 minutes for signals to travel from Mars to Earth at their current distance (30 minutes there and back). It was launched on 4 August last year, so that is over 9 months to travel to Mars. Russia has no involvement in the mission – their unmanned space exploration program has been dismally absent since the failed 1996 Mars 96 mission.
The main official sites for the lander are at NASA and the University of Arizona. Some images have been sent back but rather disappointingly they are black-and-white. I wonder why a true-color camera that would record colors as humans would see them has not been included on any mission? There is a color-calibration tool which gives an approximation of the colors.
The NASASpaceflight.com forum just changed over to new updated forum software. They managed it much better than the botched Space.com changeover in February – the awful unusability of the latter’s forum software is beyond belief! It is slow, needs Javascript to display at all and the URLs of pages are hideously long; the complaints from users have been endless. I rarely post or visit there now.
