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upper doors should be removed and an alternate method (such as clips) provided to attache the meal trays to the gallery or locker fronts for meal preparation (R)

The lower gallery door provided an excellent work platform for the preparation of meals and should be retained. A great deal more velcro should be added to the lower tray and in the gallery area to retain food items during meal preparation (R). The small patches currently installed will not even hold the drinks for a five-person crew.

The additional hydrogen separator installed in Challenger's potable water system seemed to work very well. Other than occasional bubbles, there was very little gas in the water. The gas that was present was not found to be objectionable to the crew.

The only malfunction in the gallery system occurred on day 1. While refilling a drink container with 4 ounces of water, the container continued to fill and the water would not shut off. The drink container was removed to preclude it bursting, the needle was held by a crewmember, both gallery power switches were turned off, and the emergency water shutoff was closed. The system was cycled several times with the same continuous-flow results, but then it began operating normally and continued to function correctly for the rest of the mission.

Waste Control System (WCS): In general, the WCS functioned normally during the flight except for one failure. Some crew comments on usability and capacity follow.

Fan separator 2 failed on day 3 and the crew switched to separator 1. On a subsequent day, the circuit breaker for fan separator 2 was cycled and the fan worked for about half a day before failing again. The WCS circuit breaker (on ML86B) was cycled several more times but the fan never operated for the remainder of the flight.

The primary crew comments on the operation of the WCS were:

1. After day 4, the paper and feces in the commode had to pushed aside to make room for more capacity. This process continued for the duration of the mission and the crew felt that, by entry day, the WCS had almost reached its limit for holding paper and fecal matter.

2. Several times during urination the suction on the unit appeared to decrease with no accompanying change in the sound of the fan separator motor. This resulted in balls of urine floating in the WCS which had to be captured and disposed of. The system should be modified to ensure adequate suction so that urine does not escape into the crew environment (R).

For STS 41-C, the WCS transport had been shortened and the modification appeared to help in the crew use of the WCS. In addition, the tines had been removed from the slinger portion of the unit and the crew did not notice any fecal dust emitting from the WCS into the cabin environment. This had been reported by crews on previous missions.

Trash Management: The crew found adequate space to stow trash generated during the mission. The primary stowage area was the wet trash compartment. This compartment had been rearranged several times to provide additional stowage space, and by the end of the mission, it appeared to be completely full on entry day.