**STS-116 Flight Plan and over 200mb of 116 mission presentations available on L2** <\/font><\/p>\n <\/font><\/u> <\/p>\n One of the defining factors of the ISS\u2019 consumables is the level of oxygen supplies, which are plentiful. However, those levels are currently being depleted due to another failure of the Elektron, which in turn reduces the CSCS timeline, something NASA would wish to avoid given the <\/font>lack of contingency days remaining in Discovery \u2013 and more so \u2013 Atlantis\u2019 processing flows<\/font>.<\/p>\n \u2018Due to Wednesday\u2019s failure of an Elektron control panel (blown fuse), the scheduled troubleshooting could not be completed. Preliminary data seems to implicate a valve solenoid (coil), but a formal determination will not be available until Friday,\u2019 noted Thursday\u2019s On Orbit report.<\/p>\n \u2018Necessary replacement hardware would be delivered on 23P (Progress re-supply ship). Meanwhile, MCC-H has made the decision to use oxygen from US Airlock HPGT (High Pressure Gas Tank) storage for the first time until 23P arrives. First US O2 repress occurred on Thursday.\u2019 <\/font><\/p>\n That replacement part won\u2019t arrive at the ISS until the end of October, with the Russian Progress M-58 not due to launch until the 24th of October, docking three days later.<\/font><\/p>\n Due to this scenario, NASA managers will have to continually evaluate the accurate CSCS timeline, based on ISS consumables. This was acknowledged in a NASA memo this week, acquired by this site, noting the Elektron situation is the ISS\u2019 \u2018biggest challenge\u2019 for the NET (No Earlier Than) December 7 launch of Discovery. <\/p>\n Discovery can\u2019t launch unless NASA is comfortable that there is enough contingency for Atlantis to launch in time to rescue the crew of Discovery, in the event of a Safe Haven scenario being called. <\/font><\/p>\n \u2018The ISS Program can support a December 7 launch date for STS-116. The biggest challenge will be supporting CSCS; capabilities will be reduced from previous missions,\u2019 noted the memo. \u2018The Elektron needs to be recovered and there is no spare available. OGS (Oxygen Generating System) hardware is being expedited for flight on STS-116.\u2019<\/p>\n Interestingly, the same memo notes that NASA is in talks with the Russians in relation to supporting CSCS requirements, potentially in relation to previous offers of Soyuz support made by RSC Energia president Nikolay Sevastyanov, who claimed they could support an expedited turnaround of Soyuz vehicles for aiding the rescue of crewmembers, should a \u2018safe haven\u2019 event be called.<\/p>\n <\/font>\u2018Negotiations are on-going with the Russians on crew rescue and crew rotation,\u2019 added the memo. \u2018International Partner flight opportunities are being worked among the partners.\u2019<\/p>\n A solution to the Elecktron issue would certainly ease the concerns, although that will have to wait until the system is hopefully fixed after the replacement hardware arrives in the latter part of this month.<\/p>\n This still leaves plenty of time for NASA to make an accurate CSCS evaluation, in time for the FRR (Flight Readiness Review) for STS-116.<\/p>\n <\/font> <\/p>\n **NASASpaceflight.com Job Opportunities**<\/em><\/font> <\/p>\n <\/font> The troublesome Elektron Oxygen Generating system is once again broken \u2013 and requires a new part to be delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) on the next Russian Progress re-supply ship (M-58). The long-term oxygen supply status on the Station is now starting to become the cause of concern NASA, given its relation to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
**LIVE news updates on Discovery STS-116 Processing Flow**
**LIVE news updates on Atlantis STS-117 (STS-317) Processsing Flow**<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n<\/font>Currently, LON (Launch On Need) requirements call for Atlantis (STS-317) to be ready to launch within around two months of Discovery\u2019s lift off in December. That length of time, known as the CSCS timeline, is determined by the amount of time the International Space Station (ISS) can comfortably accommodate both the ISS crew and a stranded STS-116 crew before Atlantis arrives as the rescue shuttle.<\/p>\n
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