The toilet system costs US$23 million. Its official name is “Universal Recycling System
While on the space station, astronautswill test how the new toilet works in microgravity. The system will be installed next to an existing toilet at the space station's 3rd node, NASA Advanced Exploration Systems project manager Melissa McKinley said at a press conference.
The ISS avoided a collision with space debris
They plan to use this modification of the toiletto prepare for long flights. The engineers added that they were using "new approaches to waste disposal and some of the challenges that experts foresee in future flights." According to them, collecting and storing waste will become one of the main problems during the flight, since human waste is full of microbes.
The toilet currently used inthe American section of the ISS, developed back in the 90s. Astronauts have already complained several times about "sensitivity to the astronaut's seating position, which could lead to accidental contamination of the collection hardware with faeces." The old toilet has also been criticized for "poor grip and difficulty in use" (from a review by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics). The new toilet has solved these problems.
The new system will be easier to use andwill help facilitate the work of mixed gender groups. The toilet is used for primary treatment of urine so that it can then be safely processed using the spacecraft's recirculation systems. The shape and volume of the seat have also been changed in the new toilet.
Read also
The Doomsday glacier turned out to be more dangerous than scientists thought. We tell the main thing
GitHub has replaced the term "master" with a neutral equivalent
Two pieces of evidence of extraterrestrial life emerged at once. One on Venus, the other - no one knows where