Space Station to be Abandoned?

Space station may fall into disrepair
Michael Hopkin

Failure to fix oxygen unit could leave orbiting lab crewless.

YEAH! Lets dump that poor excuse for a station and ground the shuttles too
before they ill another crew!!!!
HAVE A GREAT DAY!

Agamemnon wrote:
October. If the
generator is not reliably repaired by then, space officials may
decide
against sending up a fresh crew because there would be no
guarantee of
enough oxygen to last their stay.

What a bunch of crock. The logical solution is to send the crew up and have
them thinker with Elektron until they run out of O2 and the use Soyuz to come
back down.

Again, Progress provides O2, so do Oxygen Candles, adn there is plenty of O2
available for release from the US segment's Quest tanks. And based on a Jim
Oberg document, it seems that Elektron only needs to operate one hour in full
mode to provide suffficient oxygen to support one adult male for one day, so
it needs to run for essentially 2 hours per day.

"bob haller" wrote in message
...

Space station may fall into disrepair
Michael Hopkin

Failure to fix oxygen unit could leave orbiting lab crewless.

YEAH! Lets dump that poor excuse for a station and ground the shuttles too
before they ill another crew!!!!

This assumes that Russia will "roll over" and give up. I very much doubt
that. Not only do they have Elektron currently running, but will surely
continue to troubleshoot problems as they develop (and they will).
Furthermore, Progress can bring up gaseous O2 in addition to O2 candles and
spare parts for Elektron.

Unfortunately, none of the other international partners are in a position to
help with ISS resupply at this time. That's the real problem with ISS, the
fact that the shuttle is grounded and can't provide any ISS resupply.

Furthermore, ESA and Japan are a bit slow (in terms of the ISS program) in
getting their resupply ships operational. It clearly would have been
beneficial to have thier ships flying by now as a backup to any Shuttle or
Progress failure.

Jeff
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On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:40:10 -0400, Jeff Findley wrote:


"John Doe" wrote in message
...
Agamemnon wrote:
October. If the
generator is not reliably repaired by then, space officials may
decide
against sending up a fresh crew because there would be no guarantee
of
enough oxygen to last their stay.

What a bunch of crock. The logical solution is to send the crew up and
have
them thinker with Elektron until they run out of O2 and the use Soyuz
to
come
back down.

Again, Progress provides O2, so do Oxygen Candles, adn there is plenty
of
O2
available for release from the US segment's Quest tanks. And based on a
Jim
Oberg document, it seems that Elektron only needs to operate one hour
in
full
mode to provide suffficient oxygen to support one adult male for one
day,
so
it needs to run for essentially 2 hours per day.

I tend to agree. Russia is still sending up Progress vehicles, which
can surely carry some spare parts for Elektron in addition to gaseous
oxygen and oxygen candles. Resupply is all about priorities. For some
time, water was in "short supply", now it's oxygen. Hopefully Russia
will find ways to deal with this, since ESA, Japan, and the US are
currently unable to help with resupply.




Water is oxygen, until now.

It may not be a matter of spare parts for the Elektron, if the liquid/gas
separator wears out. Liquid electrolyte and crystals of KOH clogging the
O2 and H2 lines, causing increased pressure and shutting down the unit.
Something like the liquid/gas separator may be too deep in the Elektron to
replace. Or, possibly to dangerous to attempt to change in zero gees.

Surely they know by now what the common mode of failure is and what parts
are involved.

Craig Fink
Badnarik for President http://www.badnarik.org
http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/ar...rticleid=78317
Badnarik and others, coming to a PBS program near you! Sept 29th, or 30th.
Don't go to the polls as ignorant as CNN, MSNBC, FOXNEW,... would like you
to be.

"Craig Fink" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 10:40:10 -0400, Jeff Findley wrote:
I tend to agree. Russia is still sending up Progress vehicles, which
can surely carry some spare parts for Elektron in addition to gaseous
oxygen and oxygen candles. Resupply is all about priorities. For some
time, water was in "short supply", now it's oxygen. Hopefully Russia
will find ways to deal with this, since ESA, Japan, and the US are
currently unable to help with resupply.

Water is oxygen, until now.

It may not be a matter of spare parts for the Elektron, if the liquid/gas
separator wears out. Liquid electrolyte and crystals of KOH clogging the
O2 and H2 lines, causing increased pressure and shutting down the unit.
Something like the liquid/gas separator may be too deep in the Elektron to
replace. Or, possibly to dangerous to attempt to change in zero gees.

Surely they know by now what the common mode of failure is and what parts
are involved.

Surely. But I wonder...

Once the shuttle is flying, would it be possible to use the shuttle to
return one of the completely failed Elektron units for refurbishment and
reflight? Perhaps this could be done on an MPLM flight, since the MPLM
gives you bigger hatches than you get through the docking adapter.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...

Surely. But I wonder...

Once the shuttle is flying, would it be possible to use the shuttle to
return one of the completely failed Elektron units for refurbishment and
reflight? Perhaps this could be done on an MPLM flight, since the MPLM
gives you bigger hatches than you get through the docking adapter.

A quick Google search seems to have answered my question:

http://www.astronautix.com/flights/sts84.htm

Mir was plentifully provided with an extra supply of water and
oxygen en the replacement equipment and spare parts to postpone
for a very long time the definitive termination of the ageing
space station. The most important equipment for that purpose
was the new oxygen machine Elektron, which had to be installed
in the Module-D (Kvant-2). The old Elektron which had been
repaired some weeks ago and has been operational in Module-D
has been reinstalled in the former spot in Kvant-1 to be used
as a reserve. The delivered supply of oxygen enables the crew
to refrain for a long period from the use of the Elektrons.
Defective equipment, for instance the old Elektron, which could
not be repaired, has been brought back to earth for analysis.

In other words, an Elektron has been sent to orbit(to Mir) and another
brought down using the space shuttle.

So, this latest discussion of Elektron has ignored the fact that having the
shuttle grounded has eliminated the most obvious of solutions to this
problem, which would be to completely refurbish (and perhaps update) an
Elektron on the ground.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

Craig Fink wrote:
It may not be a matter of spare parts for the Elektron, if the liquid/gas
separator wears out. Liquid electrolyte and crystals of KOH clogging the
O2 and H2 lines, causing increased pressure and shutting down the unit.
Something like the liquid/gas separator may be too deep in the Elektron to
replace. Or, possibly to dangerous to attempt to change in zero gees.

If you were building a device that would be used in a far away place for 10
years and that device, as a whole was pretty big and bulky (eg: total
replacement unlikely), then you'd probably want to build it so that it is
fully field serviceable with every component replaceable in a manageable size/weight.

Whether Elektron was built that way or not, I am not sure. But Russian
mentality and manufactiring (emphasis on MANU - hand) processes might lead
one to believe that Elektron would be built to be serviced 100%.

"John Doe" wrote in message ...
If you were building a device that would be used in a far away place for
10
years and that device, as a whole was pretty big and bulky (eg: total
replacement unlikely), then you'd probably want to build it so that it is
fully field serviceable with every component replaceable in a manageable
size/weight.

Whether Elektron was built that way or not, I am not sure. But Russian
mentality and manufactiring (emphasis on MANU - hand) processes might
lead
one to believe that Elektron would be built to be serviced 100%.

Actually, this has been done before on STS-84.

http://www.astronautix.com/flights/sts84.htm

This flight brought a replacement Elektron to Mir and returned a failed unit
to Earth. One would think that this would be possible with ISS as well.
Unfortunately, the shuttle isn't currently flying.

Jeff
--
Remove icky phrase from email address to get a valid address.

John Doe wrote:
Whether Elektron was built that way or not, I am not sure. But Russian
mentality and manufactiring (emphasis on MANU - hand) processes might lead
one to believe that Elektron would be built to be serviced 100%.

Actually, that's bull****.. Any such assumption is based on
handwaving assumptions, not fact.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

Actually, that's bull****.. Any such assumption is based on
handwaving assumptions, not fact.


besides with in orbit time costing how much per minute? $100,000 servicing
stuff should be minimized.
HAVE A GREAT DAY!