ISS astronauts fix faulty urine processor: NASA

Astronauts at the International Space Station have fixed a faulty urine processor unit after NASA extended the Endeavour shuttle mission by 24 hours to work on it, NASA said Tuesday.
Extending the mission to 16 days "has paid off for the shuttle and station crews as well as the ground teams," the agency said in a statement on its website.
Crew members ran three successful cycles on the unit, designed to process urine, perspiration and bath water into drinkable water.
The 250-million-dollar device, which will now remain on the ISS instead of being brought back to Earth, was an essential part of the shuttle mission to double the station's accommodation capacity.
Once up and running, the unit will be able to recycle the station's 6.8 tonnes of waste water produced each year, and make it no longer necessary to regularly ferry vast quantities of water to the space station.
Samples of the drinking water produced by the machine will be brought back to Earth for analysis.
Also, complex repairs on the station's exterior, undertaken in four grueling spacewalks over the last week, appeared to be a success after preliminary tests, said NASA.
Astronauts cleaned, lubricated and replaced eleven of twelve ball bearings of a rotation device on one of the ISS's three double solar antenna arrays, or Solar Alpha Rotary Joint, which was stuck.
First data from the tests suggest the equipment is "using less power and moving more freely than before," said the agency.
The four spacewalks bring to 118 the total number -- 745 hours, 29 minutes -- used in building the ISS since it was first placed in orbit on November 20, 1998.
The orbiting structure is scheduled to be completed by mid-2010.
Endeavour is set to undock from the ISS Friday morning, with landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at around 1:18 pm (1818 GMT) Sunday.
Endeavour has delivered 14.5 tons of equipment to double the ISS' crew capacity from three to six.
Besides the urine-recycling unit, the astronauts installed a freezer and an oven for scientific experiments by NASA's Destiny Laboratory Module, two new sleeping quarters, exercise equipment, a second toilet, and two new ovens and a refrigerator for food preparation.