NASA was assessing a cracked thermal tile and protruding ceramic ring Wednesday on the space shuttle Endeavour — two new problems that don't appear serious but warrant extra attention. "Initially, it doesn't look like we're going to be very concerned about them," said mission management team leader LeRoy Cain. "But we want to be very vigilant and take a closer look." As engineers on the ground scrambled to understand the problems and determine whether repairs were needed, the 11 astronauts aboard the linked space shuttle and space station spent a relatively quiet first day together. They overcame a spacesuit problem in advance of Thursday night's spacewalk and replaced broken parts in a system that turns astronauts' urine into drinking water. Shuttle astronaut Robert Behnken's spacesuit was unusable because of a faulty harness that prevented him from turning on his glove heaters and operating his helmet camera. So he borrowed the upper part of a suit already on the space station. The most important job — inst alling a new room and an observation deck at the International Space Station — will get under way during Thursday night's spacewalk, the first of three. As for the space station's water recycling system, the urine processor has been acting up for months. Endeavour took up replacement parts as well as a filter to catch all the calcium deposits in the urine. The repair work is such a high priority that it began within hours of the shuttle's arrival early Wednesday. Astronauts can suffer considerable bone loss in weightlessness. It's conceivable excess calcium in their urine is clogging the machine, but officials believe the system itself is also to blame. The unexpected shuttle problems grabbed management's attention Wednesday. A thermal tile repair that was made before the flight has failed, and the original crack is back, right over the cockpit. Then there's the round ceramic spacer near one of the cockpit windows that's sticking out. Engineers are trying to determine whether the spacer might come loose durin g re-entry and, if it did, whether it would slam into the rudder or orbital-maneuvering rockets.For further: www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/science/6861355.html
