NEW YORK, June 1. /TASS/. A urine processor assembly on the International Space Station (ISS) is out of order after a pump failure, NASA’s ISS Program Manager Dana Weigel told a press conference.

"We got surprised by an onboard anomaly this week on Wednesday morning (May 29 - TASS). Our urine processor assembly, or UPA, had a pump that failed. That urine processor takes all of the crew’s urine and processes in the first step of a water recovery system. It then sends it downstream to a water processor which turns it into drinking water. And so, the station is really designed to be closed loop and to have the urine processed continually all the way through down to drinking water. And so, with that process, [it’s] failed. We’re in a position where we have to store urine onboard station," she said.

Weigel explained, "We’ve got bags and tanks that we’ve got up there for this purpose, but we’ve got limited inventory." According to her, NASA expected that the pump that failed would "run until about the fall timeframe." So, a new pump is expected to be sent to the ISS by Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft with astronauts on board, which launch is scheduled for June 1.