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Space Science

Space Station Dogged By Oxygen Problems 58

Posted by CowboyNeal from the room-to-breathe dept.
Alien54 writes "All of the Russian made Elektron oxygen generators on the International Space Station have failed. The three Elektron units on board the space station are the last of their kind. The company that manufactured them has gone out of business, and the engineer who almost single-handedly made the final adjustments of flight units died several years ago. Reportedly he retained some 'trade secret' about the final adjustments of the devices -- and it died with him. But NASA is not alarmed."
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Space Station Dogged By Oxygen Problems More

Space Station Dogged By Oxygen Problems

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  • Later in the news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by M1FCJ ( 586251 ) on Friday September 10, 2004 @02:08AM (#10210363) Homepage
    Two astronauts do the kiss of life, transferring oxygen between each other because American astronaut won't let the oxygen cylinder go.

  • Temporary fix (Score:5, Funny)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Friday September 10, 2004 @02:08AM (#10210366)


    If we could trap all the hot air from the presidential campaign in a big balloon and release it just as the ISS went by, maybe they could catch it and use it to keep the station going for a few more weeks.

  • Pulic domain enforcement (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jesrad ( 716567 ) on Friday September 10, 2004 @03:01AM (#10210520) Journal
    The company that manufactured them has gone out of business, and the engineer who almost single-handedly made the final adjustments of flight units died several years ago. Reportedly he retained some 'trade secret' about the final adjustments of the devices -- and it died with him.

    And THIS is why there should be public domain repositories actively developped by governments, possibly along with mandatory escrow clauses for failed companies' IP. They would collect and index works that fall in the public domain ("This land is your land" anyone ?) as soon as possible, and maybe even buy exclusive rights of dying proprietary technology to make them open standards forever. I'm pretty sure this sort of service could even be profitable.

    Private companies develop their own pool of patents and trademarks, why not the general public, too ?
    • http://www.archive.org/ [archive.org]

      "The Internet Archive is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, and the general public."
    • They are public libraries.
    • And THIS is why there should be public domain repositories actively developped by governments, possibly along with mandatory escrow clauses for failed companies' IP. They would collect and index works that fall in the public domain ("This land is your land" anyone ?) as soon as possible, and maybe even buy exclusive rights of dying proprietary technology to make them open standards forever.

      Perhaps you've never worked around a specialist like this who oversees such information. I've worked with plastics

  • Alternatives (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wetlettuce ( 765604 ) on Friday September 10, 2004 @03:26AM (#10210567) Homepage
    It seems to me that the actual process is pretty simple to actually produce the oxygen (Battery across two metal plates dipped in water, oxygen bubbles from one, hydrogen from the other - more info [wikipedia.org]). Granted you have to ensure the quality of the supply and get rid of the hydrogen but surely this isn't beyond the expertise of NASA. They have known for years that there no expertise in fixing these units. Why have they not been designing and building replacements?

    • Re:Alternatives (Score:3, Interesting)

      by BusterB ( 10791 )
      But help is on the way. ?Three completely redesigned units are currently in production,? a NASA source said. The new devices will not use the liquid-gel electrolyte system that has led to all previous units eventually breaking down. Instead, they will rely on a solid polymer electrolyte.

      Delivery of the first of these units is expected ?in March or April of 2005?, the source continued. How fast they really can be completed, tested and flight-qualified remains an open question in the severely underfunded Rus

    • Re:Alternatives (Score:3, Insightful)

      by stevelinton ( 4044 )
      In zero-gee the gasses don't bubble from the plates, they just sit there. This makes life much more complicated.
      • Really? That much more complicated?

        Wouldn't slow spinning the whole thing separate things out?

        • Re:Alternatives (Score:3, Insightful)

          by stevelinton ( 4044 )
          Ok. So now you have bearings and a motor. You have to run your oxygen, hydrogen and water hoses and power leads through the bearing somehow, and you need to make sure that the whole thing stays watertight even when it stops spinning and doesn't make too much noise.

          As the man from Pentagon said after their ballistic interceptor test failed again, "this is rocket science".

          I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it isn't simple.
          • Actually, the Russian gadget does that; more or less.

            So far as I can tell, they don't spin the gadget, they set up a vortex in the electrolyte, and that gives you a pressure gradient (essentially artificial gravity) that gives the bubbles an 'up'- in this case an 'in'. They then feed the oxygen into the cabin and dump the hydrogen overboard.

          • Ok, how about this.

            You still spin the thing to separate the gas out. On inner edge where the gas collects you have a gortex like membrian that will let the gas out but keep the water in.

            Now, you have the gas, H and O, in your ship. Make another H scrubber. I'll leave that activity up to the reader :).
      • Pressurized Gas moves towards a low pressure zone. Aka oxygen inside pressurized tank will move towards the cabin.
    • I can't wait until plants can do the job of making oxygen instead of relying on machines.
    • As a matter of fact, my group here at JSC finished a Backup Oxygen Candle System (aka the BOCS) a few months ago. This could have provided the ISS with two more months of oxygen. We could then have flown additional Oxygen Candles to keep the ISS going until the US Oxygen Generation System is on-line.

      The Russians refused to admit that an Elektron failure was imminent, and so the BOCS was not manifested for 16P (That's the Progress mission that has just passed).

      So, long story short, NASA has been doing some
      • My group here at JSC finished a Backup Oxygen Candle System (aka the BOCS)

        The point about the Elektron is that it basically recycles water from the atmosphere and other water sources to provide oxgen. BOCS is not replacement for Elektron, its a band-aid until a new primary system can be put in place.

        NASA gets a lot of flack around here...

        It does and I'm sure the Russians should take the blame too. But the fact is there are people in a spacecraft with a limited oxygen supply, all the primary oxyge
        • BOCS is not replacement for Elektron, its a band-aid until a new primary system can be put in place.

          Right. I guess I should have been more clear. I meant BOCS could keep the station going until the Shuttle returns to flight, giving us the upmass ability to replace the Elektron.
          • I meant BOCS could keep the station going until the Shuttle returns to flight, giving us the upmass ability to replace the Elektron.

            Cool, we good luck getting it in. :-)

  • I started reading this story... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Omkar ( 618823 ) on Friday September 10, 2004 @03:26AM (#10210568) Homepage Journal
    I started reading this story, and realized, when I clicked to RTFA, that I was up at 4:30AM, reading Slashdot, and clikcing through to read about some oxygen equipment failure that even NASA isn't worried about. Talk about exchanging sleep time for quality time.

  • But NASA is not alarmed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 10, 2004 @03:50AM (#10210626)
    Of course not, plenty of oxygen down here.

  • Talking out of my ass (Score:3, Funny)

    by SimianOverlord ( 727643 ) on Friday September 10, 2004 @03:53AM (#10210631) Homepage Journal
    It's obvious what the "trade secret" is. The final part of the hose had been held on with a piece of chewing gum, and it's now become too dried and brittle to hold it together.

  • Push a random button (Score:3, Funny)

    by cL0h ( 624108 ) on Friday September 10, 2004 @03:55AM (#10210642)
    Reportedly he retained some 'trade secret' about the final adjustments of the devices -- and it died with him.

    "Eenie meenie miney mo."
    click

    Nuclear meltdown averted!!

  • OSS. (Score:5, Funny)

    by iMMersE ( 226214 ) on Friday September 10, 2004 @04:30AM (#10210732) Homepage
    See, this is what happens when you use ISS. You should have used OSS. You get free and open oxygen that way.

  • Submarines (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Detritus ( 11846 ) on Friday September 10, 2004 @05:34AM (#10210918) Homepage
    How about modifying and installing some of the equipment used on nuclear submarines? I'd think that after decades of service and experience at sea, it would be reliable and inexpensive by NASA flight hardware standards.

    • Re:Submarines (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Ok, lets just check the formula

      infinite water supply
      infinite power supply from a nuclear generator

      equals O and H2

      hummmm where the hell did those guys put the water supply in space ???

      The russian device is very very simple but almost perfect in efficiency, and there lies the secret, MIR used those generators for years without problems... keep it simple and stupid but very tricky to tune :)
      • Since someone screwed up and modded this "Insightful"...

        hummmm where the hell did those guys put the water supply in space ???

        Where the hell do you think they get their O2 now? Do you think they magically create it from the rarified gases outside? No, they use water.

        Power isn't a problem either. They should have a significant amount available from the solar collectors, allocated just for this purpose.

    • It it actually works - for example, how do you go about seperating the oxygen from the water and making sure there's no hydrogen in it in zero-G. I've no idea. But I'm willing to bet it's neither easy nor inexpensive.
      • That's actually quite easy and as someone else pointed out any third grader can do it. Take two electrodes and connect them to a low voltage source (a car battery is plenty). Put the electrodes in water and add some salt. Hydrogen will be generated at the - electrode, and oxygen will be generated at the + electrode. To collect the gasses put a test tube around each electrode.

        As far as making sure there's no hydrogen on the oxygen side, seperate the two electrodes and water with some kind of electrical
    • I found a well-written tutorial [usna.edu] (PDF file) from the Naval Academy on the subject of submarine air treatment. A spacecraft would have to deal with the same problems, even though the corrective measures might be different.
    • A submarine can take advantage of gravity. A spaceship can't.

  • Actually the crew isnt worried either about oxygen (Score:3, Funny)

    by imr ( 106517 ) on Friday September 10, 2004 @05:54AM (#10210969)
    They have received their doom3 copy a few weeks ago and have locked themselves in various places of the station since. Oxygen is the least of their terror right now, but the banging on the walls of the station on the other hand....

  • 'Trade Secrets' (Score:4, Informative)

    by Catmeat ( 20653 ) <mtm.sys@uea@ac@uk> on Friday September 10, 2004 @06:10AM (#10211018)
    and the engineer who almost single-handedly made the final adjustments of flight units died several years ago. Reportedly he retained some 'trade secret' about the final adjustments of the devices -- and it died with him. But NASA is not alarmed.

    Reportedly, this is quite common. NASA people working with their Russian counterparts have discovered that, from institutions down to individuals, they hand over technical information about as readily as a tiger hands over its teeth. It's just a simple way for them to gurantee job security but it does make life complicated when you're building a space station out of components constructed in both countries.

    To find out more about the whole mess, I recommend Star-crossed Orbits: Inside the U.S.-Russian Space Alliance by James Oberg

  • 3rd grade science (Score:3, Insightful)

    by aminorex ( 141494 ) on Friday September 10, 2004 @12:10PM (#10214031) Homepage Journal
    It's going to take 4 to 6 years to produce and
    deliver the u.s. built replacement for the elektron
    systems, according to the article.

    A smart third grader can make an oxygen generator
    with a battery, wire, salt and electrodes in 5
    minutes. For the 0g environment, we'll add a
    slow centrifuge.

    Remind me not to pay my taxes if this is the
    crap I get for it.

    • Several things come to mind here, but it appears as though you don't know much about practical engineering, even for something simple like trying to design a light switch on the ISS (It's just a metal bar you place between two pieces of copper, right?)

      The trick in this case is that you would have to be able to interface with all of the other equipment that the old equipment was designed for, keep the design as compact as possible, and since you are trying to get this installed in a zero-g environment you n

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