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Old September 12th 04, 08:41 AM
John Doe
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Jim Oberg wrote:
Thanks -- yes, they have tricks yet they haven't tried,
but not as many as once.


While you may have contractual obligatios to write sensationalistic articles,
I really do not see what the big fuss is all about. This is not the first time
that Elektron failed nor will it be the last.

If you consult the spaceflight image gallery of previous expeditions, you will
see that they have already taken apart the unit many times for repairs and
problem analysis as well as some replacement of parts.

So they have some new problem. They will work on it and eventually find out
what fails, fix it and get it working again.

The one question that was never answered is whether the USA segment is
actually capable of releasing the Quest O2 into the cabin or if there are
problems, missing software/hardware to perform this life support which should
have been operational by 8A. Note that even when Shuttle was still flying, the
USA, to my knowledge, never used the Quest O2 to compensate for failed
Elektron, especially at times when they had to revert to candles once Progress
O2 was no longer available.

Hopefully, the various US cremembers who have done work on Elektron will be
asked to meet with the US ECLSS engineers to describe the types of problems
and design issues they found on Elektron so that US engineers can make sure
these are fixed/"not reprocdured on the US equivalent of Elektron and other
systems that will be handling water.