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Lavatory dilemma solved: Normal function of all systems restored at ISS

Technical problems emerged overnight into October 20
International Space Station NASA
International Space Station
© NASA

MOSCOW, October 20. /TASS/. All systems at the International Space Station (ISS) are operating normally after all malfunctions that had occurred overnight into Tuesday were fixed, a spokesperson for Russia’s Roscosmos State Space Corporation told TASS.

"All of the station’s systems are operating normally, there is no danger to the crew’s safety and the ISS journey," the spokesperson said, adding that the crew had promptly and fully fixed all technical problems that had emerged overnight into October 20.

A toilet and the Elektron-VM oxygen supply system went out of order in the Russian section of the ISS last night.

There are currently two toilets at the International Space Station, one in the US sector (it went out of order in November 2019) and another one in the Russian sector. A third toilet is expected to be installed at the ISS after the docking of the Nauka (or Science) multifunctional lab module, which is set to be launched later in 2020. There also are toilets in the utility module of the Soyuz-MS-16 manned spacecraft docked to the ISS. The space station has oxygen supplies and the US module Tranquility has its own oxygen generation equipment.