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Space Station power goes out, toilet stops working as new crew prepares for Sunday launch
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Isn't it always like this? Company's coming, and something breaks down at the house.
It's the same way in space. International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 17 crew members, shown here in a press conference this week, are getting ready for the arrival of Expedition 18 without normal power--and without the use of their notoriously-balky toilet.
Engineers Oleg Kononenko, Greg Chamitoff and Commander Sergei Volkov (left to right) are trying to work around both problems as ground controllers tech out the power glitch. The eletrical problem downed critical systems throughout the station as well as equipment in the European and Japanese laboratories.
Earlier this year, a component called a "separator" in a Russian-built electronics box caused a similiar power problem. Ground controllers were able to fix the problem, a feat they're trying to duplicate as they sleuth out the exact cause of the current problem.
The Expedition 17 crew isn't in any danger right now, and neither the power nor the toilet problem will impact tomorrow's launch of the Expedition 18 crew from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Expedition 18 commander Michael Fincke, flight engineer Yury Lonchakov, and American space tourist/computer game guru Richard Garriott (son of American astronaut Owen Garriott) will lift off aboard the Soyuz TMA-13 at 3:01 a.m. EDT.
The onboard crew is busy getting the station ready for their arrival. But that pesky toilet means that the facilities now are reduced to the little "outhouse" in the Soyuz escape craft. As I pointed out in "How Do You Poop in Space?" (Part I and Part II), visiting the bathroom in space is pretty complicated under the best of circumstance.
Let's recount: new crew incoming, power's down, toilet's broken, and oh yes--there's also some pesky problem with a Russian telemetry system. A backup system has taken over the telemetry work until there's a fix.
Garriott, the only child of an astronaut to head for space, will return home Oct. 23 with Volkov and Oleg Kononenko in the Soyuz TMA-12. The computer game developer is traveling through Space Adventures via a contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency.
Fincke and Valentinovich have a six-month stay at the ISS ahead of them. Chamitoff, who launched to the station on the STS-124 mission of Discovery May 31. will serve as an experienced trransition flight engineer for the new team.
Astronaut Sandra H. Magnus is scheduled to fly to the station on STS-126 to replace Chamitoff as a flight engineer. The STS-126 mission aboard Endeavour will fly in mid-November, possibly as early as Nov. 14.
Endeavour is being prepared for launch at Kennedy Space Center in Florida as Atlantis stands down after trouble onboard the Hubble Space Telescope delayed the STS-125 mission. The Endeavour crew will bring up a new toilet, among other supplies.
I'll be bringing you coverage of the Expedition 18 launch on Sunday.
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