NASA Upgrades ISS System that converts Astronaut pee to Drinking Water. The ISS urine distillation system is getting an upgrade – NASA.
When it comes to recycling, the International Space Station is a champion, here’s why:
Astronaut urine is captured and processed into drinkable water as water is heavy and it is hard to transport it into the orbit. An important upgrade is about to happen to the system that does this work.
Turning wastewater into potable water is the task of the ISS water recovery system. There has been an ongoing concern about the urine-processing part of the system. There will be a redesigned urine distillation assembly installed by the astronauts. To kick off the purification process, this piece handles the crucial step of boiling urine.
NASA’s Jennifer Pruitt said in a statement, “In the last 12 years of the hardware’s orbital operation, the hardware being vulnerable in its steam environment is one of the most important things we have learned so far.”
This upgrade will focus on internal redesigns, which includes a liquid level sensor, bearing seals, a new toothed belt drive system, and a Teflon spacer. All the details regarding this can be found here.
On Monday
, the SpaceX Dragon 1 cargo resupply ship that docked on the station and it carried the hardware necessary for the upgrade. The redesigned system is described as a much-appreciated upgrade by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.For the crew of ISS, a more reliable system is good news but for NASA’s future exploration plans, it is an important step. NASA has plans on eventually sending humans to Mars and also has its eyes on returning to the moon. These long-term missions that take astronauts far away from Earth will be benefitted by these updated in-space water recycling. This plays an important role in long-term missions.
