Among the cargo losses on both US launch failures were a pair of multifiltration beds for the water processor and filters for the urine-processing system, which recycles astronauts’ waste into a drinking supply. In October, another U.S. first stage rocket exploded, while three months ago a Russian cargo ship went astray in the orbit and fell back to Earth, destroying almost 3 tons of scientific material and food supply in the process. Spokesman Dan Huot stated all analysis flown to the area station is agreed upon by everybody concerned. The replacements embrace spacewalking gear, an emergency respiration package, rest room wiring and elements for the water recycling system.
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Currently, the agency has no plans for how to replace the worldwide Space Station after it permanently closes its hatch doors in 2024. Around 93 percent of all the water onboard comes from the filter, according to the Guardian. Those standard practices carried over to the American side of the space station, which was launched in 1998. But not all crew members drink it, people familiar with the matter said.
Since the launch of the Soviet Mir space station in 1986, the Russians have used silver in its ionic form.
“It tastes like bottled water”, Layne Carter, water subsystem manager for the ISS at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center told Bloomberg.
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In March 2016, the Soyuz TMA-18M will return with Volkov, as well as one-year mission crew members Kelly and Kornienko, who arrived on station in March to begin collecting biomedical data crucial to NASA’s human journey to Mars. Silver, on the other hand, doesn’t need to be filtered although you do need to include Epsom salts into it so that it tastes better. The reason? NASA takes Russian urine, too. “We don’t do 100% of the Russian urine. It depends on our time availability”.
