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Oxygen supply system breaks down on space station

The Flight Control Center said that no measures were required

MOSCOW, October 15. /TASS/. The Elektron-VM system that supplies oxygen to the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) has broken down, one of the Russian cosmonauts reported to Russia’s Flight Control Center, according to a live broadcast on NASA’s website on Thursday.

"At 18:33 [the signal about the system’s breakage came]," the cosmonaut said.

The Flight Control Center later said that no measures were required.

"We will deal with the situation tomorrow," the Flight Control Center said.

The Elektron-VM oxygen supply system developed by Russia’s Research and Design Institute of Chemical Machine-Building (NIIChimMash) has been operational aboard the space station since its creation. The system can generate from 25 to 160 liters of oxygen per hour and additionally from 50 to 320 liters of hydrogen per hour. In April 2010, it took the ISS crew several days to fix the broken system.

The space station has available oxygen supplies while the US module Tranquility has its own oxygen generation equipment.