A Comparison of Russian and American Oxygen Generation Hardware

Cooperation between Russia and the United States on manned spaceflight has led to unprecedented openness, resulting in the ability to now compare the characteristics of environmental control/life support hardware selected to generate oxygen (O₂) by water electrolysis for space station applications. This comparison in this paper focuses on the characteristics that have the greatest effect on the cost of assembling and maintaining the hardware in space: launch weight, volume, power consumption, resupply requirements and maintenance labor.