MSNBC (Oberg) - Oxygen problems plague space station

Crew not in imminent danger, but failures keep coming

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5953450/

By James Oberg, NBC News space analyst

Special to MSNBC // Updated: 3:51 p.m. ET, Sept. 9, 2004

HOUSTON - In what should have been the "home stretch" of their six-month orbital expedition, the crew of the international space station is struggling with new problems in their critical oxygen production system. Balky Russian equipment has been nursed along for months, but has now broken down again in a new and challenging "failure mode."

Astronaut Mike Fincke and cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who are scheduled to be relieved by a new crew in mid-October, are not in any imminent danger, and engineers remain confident that some combination of backup procedures and unprecedented in-flight repairs can keep the two breathing easy.

Without a quick resolution of this problem, however, the launch of the new crew would have to be postponed. While not a serious concern yet, the current crew then might have to set the station on "autopilot" and return to Earth by the end of October, leaving the station empty for the first time in four years.

Furthermore, this is just the latest in a series of unexpected glitches with the oxygen system. MSNBC.com has obtained internal NASA status reports and has talked with several high-ranking NASA space station officials. The picture that emerges is one of bouts of growing concern (but still short of alarm) interspersed with periods of relief and hope.