WHAT: The latest addition to the International Space Station life support system, the Water Recovery System, is targeted to launch Nov. 14 on the next space shuttle mission. This new water reclamation system will recycle wastewater from urine and crew perspiration. The vital space station hardware is the second part of a comprehensive life support system developed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The first part of the system, the Oxygen Generation System, was launched on space shuttle Discovery in July 2006. The two systems are part of NASA's Regenerative Environmental Control and Life Support System, or ECLSS, for the station. Recycling water reduces the crew's dependence on Earth resupply. It can reduce the need for outside water and consumables by about 15,000 pounds per year. Together, this closed-loop water and oxygen life support system is essential to allowing up to six crew members to live and work aboard the orbiting laboratory.

WHO: Bob Bagdigian, project manager, NASA's Regenerative Environmental Control and Life Support System

WHEN: Friday, Oct. 31, 2008, 2 p.m. CDT

WHERE: U.S. Space & Rocket Center, One Tranquility Base, Huntsville. The media availability will take place in front of model Water Recovery System racks in the rear of the museum, between the neutral buoyancy tank and a gift shop.

TO ATTEND: News media interested in covering the event should contact Jennifer Morcone in the Marshall Public and Employee Communications Office at 256-698-0964 no later than noon on Friday, Oct. 31.

For more information about the Water Recovery System and a picture of the racks during final check-out at Marshall, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/news/releases/2008/08-060.html