(NASA) – Educational events and work with a new toilet occupied the Expedition 18 crew’s time Tuesday as the International Space Station orbits about 220 miles above the Earth.
In the U.S. Destiny laboratory, Commander Mike Fincke began procedures to activate the new Waste and Hygiene Compartment, a phone-booth-sized system that will serve as a second toilet for the crew members once it becomes operational. Fincke ran into to-be-expected startup issues as the system powered up, then shut down due to a variety of error messages in the complex plumbing system.
Image above: Expedition 18 Flight Engineer Sandra Magnus (left) and Commander Mike Fincke talk with students from the STARBASE Atlantis Naval Air Station education program in Corpus Christi, Texas. Credit: NASA TV
Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov connected measurement system cables for EXPOSE-R, a suite of nine European Space Agency experiments that will expose a variety of seeds and spores to the harsh environment of space for more than a year. Lonchakov and Fincke will install EXPOSE-R outside the station’s Zvezda Service Module during a spacewalk slated for Dec. 22.
Flight Engineer Sandy Magnus performed regularly scheduled maintenance on the station’s treadmill, one of several exercise devices the crew uses for its daily exercise sessions to counteract the effects of living and working in space.
Magnus took a break from her activities for a two-way radio call from students at Stephen F. Austin Elementary School in Richmond, Texas. Magnus, the newest member of the crew, also continued to familiarize herself with the orbital outpost.
Fincke and Magnus later participated in a live video talk with students from the STARBASE Atlantis Naval Air Station education program in Corpus Christi, Texas. To prepare for the event, the students participated in education activities to learn about the space station’s modules, mission objectives and experiments.
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