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Steve Roy
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.    January 28, 2003
(Phone: 256/544-0034)

Dolores Beasley
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1753)

RELEASE: 03-021

SPACE WATER RECYCLING EXPERIMENT FLYING HIGH ABOARD SPACE SHUTTLE

     In a remote, hostile, totally alien environment, every 
life-sustaining resource is precious. In space, other than air, none 
is more precious than water.

Improving the careful use of that critical resource is the goal of the 
Vapor Compression Distillation Flight Experiment, which is undergoing 
tests during the STS-107 Space Shuttle mission launched January 16.

The experiment, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in 
Huntsville, Ala., is a full-scale demonstration of technology being 
developed to convert crewmember urine and wastewater aboard the 
International Space Station into clean water for drinking, cooking and 
hygiene. Based on results of the experiment, an operational urine 
processor could be installed aboard the Station in the future, thus 
reducing the amount of water that must be re-supplied from Earth.

"We operated successfully on Saturday, Sunday and Monday (Jan.18-20)" 
said Cindy Hutchens, manager of the Vapor Compression Distillation 
Flight Experiment. "Our data look very similar to that on the ground, 
so we feel very confident about our hardware. Mission Specialist 
Laurel Clark described our processed water samples as clear, which is 
very good. On Sunday, we did a test to see how it would start up if it 
lost power, and that appears to be successful. We're looking forward 
to getting back our samples and the recorded data for analysis," she 
said.

Aboard the Space Station, each of the three crewmembers is allocated 
just 4.4 gallons of water per day. By comparison, the average American 
uses 60 gallons per day on Earth. Not only is it costly to carry water 
into space aboard the Space Shuttle and Russian Progress spacecraft, 
but also cargo space is already much in demand for carrying up food,
clothing, equipment and scientific experiments. NASA is working to 
collect and recycle as much water as possible to save space and reduce 
costs.

"The water recovery system on the Space Station will be similar to a 
water treatment plant on Earth. The process has to be different on the 
Station in order to operate in the weightlessness of space and to fit 
in the area of about two phone booths," Hutchens said.

The experiment is part of a NASA effort to reduce technical risk 
between the design of flight hardware and actual installation aboard 
the Space Station, Hutchens said. The vapor compression distillation 
process mechanically mimics Earth's natural process of evaporation. 
Instead of heating water with the power of the sun, however, these 
systems boil wastewater to produce and collect water vapor that is 97
percent free of minerals, chemicals and microbes.

The experiment is designed to verify the recycling concept in 
microgravity, the low-gravity environment created as a spacecraft 
orbits the Earth. For the experiment, de-ionized water containing some 
salts was used instead of urine.

The experiment occupies a refrigerator-sized rack in the SPACE HAB 
module in the Shuttle payload bay for the STS-107 mission. Experiments 
will test the system under a series of normal and abnormal operating 
scenarios. The Shuttle crew activated the experiment, but it is 
primarily automated. The experiment team monitors operations and 
receives data in a control room at NASA's Johnson Space Center in 
Houston.

Part of the Station's water processing system was tested on a KC-135 
aircraft in 2002 that simulates microgravity conditions.

"When this technology is installed aboard the Space Station, it will 
be able to process about 4,400 pounds (2,000 kg) of waste water 
annually to support the crew, and decrease the water requirements on 
resupply missions," Hutchens said. "Beyond that, further human 
exploration of space will require water recycling technology. And it 
may even have applications on Earth, where many people don't have 
ready access to a clean water supply," she said.

For more information about the STS-107 mission:
www.spaceflight.nasa.gov

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