ISS Toilet Out Of Order

International Space Station's Toilet Out of Order.

NASA says the only toilet aboard the International Space Station has broken and the crew doesn't have the plumbing parts they need to fix it.

The good news is that the space shuttle Discovery will bring the spare parts to the space station when it visits next week.

Until then, the three living aboard the space station will have to make do with a backup bag-like system.

There were concerns that they might have to push back the shuttle launch if they couldn't get spare parts to the shuttle on time.

The Mission Management Team believes they can get the spare parts delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in time for Discovery to launch on May 31.

Since then, the part of the toilet that gathers liquid waste has been working on and off. Fortunately, the solid waste-collecting part is functioning normally. Russian officials do not know the cause of the problem and the crew have been unable to fix it.

The crew has used the toilet on the Soyuz return capsule, but it has a limited capacity. They are now using a back-up bag-like collection system that can be connected to the broken toilet.