from 'NASA WATCH' : Elektron is Offline - Again

NASA Space Station On-Orbit Status 4 January 2005 link to
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=14981

"The Elektron is currently off. After it shut down on 1/1, reactivation was
not attempted until after yesterday's troubleshooting by Sharipov, who
worked on removing any air bubbles in the pumping system. When turned on,
the machine ran for a short period of time and then shut down again.
TsUP/Moscow is currently developing new troubleshooting steps." Posted by
keith cowing at 04:24 PM Jan 04



JimO adds: No alarm bells -- There are plenty of consumable oxygen supplies,
enough to get the next Progress.... but is the unit finally hard-broke like
all previous ones, or can it be nursed back to health and last until a
supposed solid-state electrolyzer unit is ready for flight later this year?
There seems to be some cumulative degradation of every previous unit of this
series, that finally reaches the point that it can't be operated. What is
the cause of this -- uncleanable contamination, seals failure, sensor
burn-out, something else, what?