Tag Archives: oxygen

A breath of fresh Oxygen

Update on the Friday, 24 August, O2 delivery into the ISS atmosphere from ESA's Jean-Michel Bois at ATV-CC:

View showing the gas & water delivery control panel mounted inside ATV and accessible to the crew.

View showing the gas & water delivery control panel mounted inside ATV and accessible to the crew.

This afternoon, the ATV tanks successfully transferred around 19 kg of Oxygen (O2) into the air cabin of the Station.

The tank valve was opened for 2 hours and 30 minutes by the crew to directly and slowly diffuse the Oxygen in the cabin; the ISS air ventilation system ensuring a good mixing and distribution of the oxygen inside the various ISS modules.

The valve was nominally closed by the crew at 19:15 CEST when the planned increase in cabin air pressure had been reached.

This transfer allowed, in particular, making up the oxygen lost during the last Extra Vehicular Activity on Monday, 20 August.

This is the second oxygen transferred performed by ATV-3. The ATV tank containing air was emptied at the very beginning of the current ATV mission. Two additional transfers of oxygen are foreseen before ATV-3 undocking on 25 September; these will empty the last ATV tank and successfully complete the transfer of the entire ATV-3 cargo load to the ISS!

Tonight’s O2 delivery complete

There's a note from ESA's Mike Steinkopf at ATV-CC earlier this evening; Mike wrote:

The ISS crew has just finished (at 22:24 CEST) the O2 repressurisation with a DP [Delta-P = change in ISS cabin pressure] of 8.9 mm Hg.

Mike was on console for the first O2 transfer from ATV-3 to the ISS; this was Gas Transfer No. 4 (ATV-3 has already delivered Air). Tonight's first O2 'repress' used ATV's tanks 2/3 and ran for 1 hr and 45 mins starting at 20:35 CEST. 14 kg of O2 were delivered, and Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko took 10 minutes to start/stop the flow. 

Well done, ATV-3 and crew!

Note that Station Commander Gennady Padalka & Malenchenko are also preparing for a dry run (tomorrow) for EVA-31 on Monday, 20 August.

EST team analysing ongoing O2 delivery from ATV-3. Credit: ESA/C. Beskow

EST team analysing ongoing O2 delivery from ATV-3. Credit: ESA/C. Beskow

ATV-3: O2 filling complete – Air loading soon to start

Update from Charlotte in Kourou for Monday AM - Ed.

Oxygen (O2) loading finished late on Saturday. After a short weekend, the teams were back at the S5 building when the facility opened at 06:00 this morning. They are now busy preparing for Air loading.

In about one hour, we will inspect the set-up, a mandatory step before the actual loading can start. We are loading 33.3kg of Air and this will take roughly 4.5 hours.

Ready to load O2 on board ATV

Preparing for O2 loading for ATV3. Credit: ESA/C. Beskow

Preparing for O2 loading for ATV3. Credit: ESA/C. Beskow

This report - written yesterday - was received a couple hours ago from Charlotte in Kourou, where the ATV-3 launch campaign team are hard at work - Ed.

Today (Saturday) at lunch time in Kourou! The TAS-I (Thales Alenia Space - Italy) and Astrium team have just started the transfer of 67kg of O2 (Oxygen) to ATV-3. At the rate of 2g/second, the total time is estimated to take around 10 hours.

It is one way to spend a Saturday; on the other hand, the rain is pounding down outside so we are not missing very much.

It's a hazarduous operation, so I am watching from my office via the close-circuit TV. S5B is closed to everyone except the authorized workers. On Monday, we will transfer the remaining 33 kg (Air).

-- Charlotte

Fresh air: ATV proves ‘pretty useful’

The unplanned break-down of a Russian oxygen (O2) generator on the International Space station means that ATV's cargo supplies of 'fresh air' - O2 - are now more important than ever.

The 'BZh Liquid Unit' of the Russian 'Elektron' oxygen generator was declared failed on 11 May (after lasting about three times longer than planned - so no one's complaining). The system uses electrolysis to strip oxygen and hydrogen from water and the liquid unit is a central, essential part of the generator.

Astro Roberto Vittori

ESA astro Roberto Vittori preparing for ingress to Shuttle Endeavour for today's launch from Kennedy Space Center. Photo via NASA TV

Russia will send a replacement unit to ISS on the Progress 43P unmanned freighter on 26 June, and there is a spare unit on board - but it suffers from a number of technical issues. As a result, and until the replacement unit is launched, the six-person ISS crew will require about 200 crew-days' worth of oxygen - and this has to come from other sources.

"This means that the oxygen in the tanks of ATV Johannes Kepler - some of which has been transferred to the ISS several times previously during the current docked mission - has now become even more important. ATV is pretty useful in this type of situation," says Nico Dettmann, Head of ESA's ATV programme.

On Saturday, the crew initiated a refresh of the ISS cabin air for two hours with O2 from ATV.

"ATV is really an essential vehicle in terms of cargo delivery: fuel, oxygen and other important supplies. The cargo complement can be tailored differently for each mission according to the actual needs of the station. ATV2 is, for example, not carrying any water during this mission. Instead it is carrying a full complement of fuel. ATV3, on the other hand, will carry less fuel, but will carry water," said Charlotte Beskow, Deputy Head of ESA's ATV programme.

Granted, the situation is nowhere near critical and, yes, Space Shuttle Endeavour will provide oxygen once it docks shortly after today's planned Shuttle launch - and there is still oxygen for approximately two weeks in the Progress 42P now attached.

"Elektron is basically out of order until the replacement unit arrives on 43P. The Shuttle will provide O2 when it's docked, and 42P has about two weeks of O2, but there is nothing much else that can be relied upon except the crew's Solid Fuel Oxygen Generator (SMOG) 'candles'. So ATV with its 230 days of O2 is pretty essential for the next while," says ESA's Bob Chesson, Head of the ISS Mission Operations team.

The SMOG candles are kept on board for special situations and possible emergencies. These are candle-shaped devices that produce oxygen by chemical reaction and, if needed, one candle per person per day is sufficient. In fact, the supply of old candles currently onboard the ISS Must be used up before their end of life, within this year, so they may also be used to add oxygen to the ISS air.

All in all, ATV is once again proving its value in space.

More details via NASA here and here.

Gas-ing up the ISS – Part 2

It's a busy day for ATV Johannes Kepler, the astronauts on board the ISS and the mission controllers at ATV-CC in Toulouse!

After this morning's reboost, which gave the ISS an extra push of about 2.1 m/s and was overseen by ATV-CC, the crew have now started the second O2 (Oxygen) transfer to the ISS. The valve on the gas control panel was opened about an hour ago at 16:52 CET, and the gas is now flowing into ATV and from there it will be distributed via the inter-module ventilation system to the rest of ISS.

"This transfer is expected to increase the overall ISS air pressure by 5mm Hg and is scheduled to last about three hours and transfer about 8kg of oxygen to the ISS. For crew, this means a bit of 'fresh air' on board Station," says ESA's Mike Steinkopf, sitting in the mission director's console position this afternoon at ATV-CC.

There will also be a dry cargo transfer today, and we'll get more details on that activity later.