The Space Shuttle Endeavour is up! With a launch just before 8 pm in Florida, the shuttle rose cleanly into the nighttime sky, carrying 15 tonnes of equipment to the International Space Station, with which it will dock within 24 hours.

Most interesting among the cargo is a $250 million water purification system, designed to recycle 90% of the water used aboard the station — including sweat and urine. (see New York Times and Bloomberg coverage). The system will save on seven tonnes of water that must be lifted up to orbit each year, according to Bloomberg.

The system will be necessary technology to test if long trips to Mars are ever undertaken, or if a moon base is established. In the meantime, it will allow living capacity to at the station to double from three to six. In order to do this, the shuttle also had to bring up another toilet.

Image: NASA/KSC