WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour has delivered an instrument to the International Space Station that can "smell" dangerous chemicals in the air, NASA said Wednesday in a mission report.

Station crew members will unpack the ENose on Dec. 9 to begin asix-month test of the instrument in the crew cabin. If the experiment is successful, the ENose may be used in future space missions as part of an automated system to monitor and control the in-space environment for astronauts, NASA said.

The ENose, designed to help protect the health and safety of astronauts in space, will monitor the space station's environment for harmful chemicals such as ammonia, mercury, methanol and formaldehyde. The shoebox-size ENose contains an array of 32 sensors.

NASA said that the ENose fills the "long-standing gap" between onboard alarms and complex analytical instruments. Air-quality problems have occurred before on the International Space Station, space shuttle and Russian Space Station Mir. In most cases, the chemicals were identified only after the crew had been exposed to them.

The ENose, which will run continuously, is the first instrument on the station that will detect and quantify chemical leaks or spills as they happen.

"The ENose is a 'first responder' that will alert crew members of possible contaminants in the air and also analyze and quantify targeted changes in the cabin environment," said Margaret Ryan, the principal investigator for the ENose project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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