ISS Oxygen Generator Fails for Good

billyj4 writes "A balky Russian oxygen generator broke down on the International Space Station, but its two-man crew has a reserve air supply that would last about five months, NASA officials said Friday. The station's primary generator, which has been operating in an on-again, off-again fashion for months, stopped working last week and the station's crew has not been able to fix it. Mission managers say the unit has failed for good. Consequently, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and U.S. astronaut John Phillips will be relying on reserves until replacement parts arrive at the station in late August."

Comments

Re:How did the Generator Fail?

[J05H]

Elektron is a standard unit on Russian space stations, Mir and Salyuts (iirc) used them as well. They break all the time. Krikalev and the crew before his (Ciao and Sharipov) all have spent tons of time working on both the Elektrons onboard. One broke, they put in the other, it has broken again. It seems that they spend a lot of time stripping and repairing Elektron units.

Definitely time for a new, more robust O2 generator. Not enough time in the interim to build a new style of generator, but there is a mid-term opportunity for one.

The Russians will be sending either parts or a new unit with the next Progress supply craft.

josh

Re:ISS crew and solar emissions

[whynotme]

ISS orbits well within the region protected by the Earth's magnetic fields, so they won't have any problem. Geosynchronous satellites are going to be impacted pretty hard, but they're designed to withstand flares (although they may shut down temporarily).

The crew of a lunar or interplanetary mission would want to take shelter, though -- most mission designs include some sheltered space for that purpose. The shielding usually consists of a water tank that surrounds most of the shielded volume -- water is an excellent material for the sort of ionized particles thrown off by the sun in these events.