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On Tuesday, September 29, the Russian State Space Corporation (Roscosmos) announced that astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) had found the source of an alleged leak. The Expedition 63 crew, astronaut and NASA commander Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, had been looking for this leak since August and determined that it was “beyond expected levels.”
Roscosmos also said in a statement that “it was established that the spot is located in the Zvezda (star) service module, which contains scientific equipment.” They also emphasized that the escape “is not dangerous to the life and health of the ISS crew and does not prevent the ISS from continuing with manned flight.” However, the amount of lost atmosphere may require additional oxygen to be pumped into the station.
The leak was isolated overnight on Monday (September 28) thanks to the efforts of the crew and the analyzes carried out by the mission control teams on the ground. It started with leak checks that were carried out on the station’s US segment, which included the US, European and Japanese modules. Commander Cassidy, Ivanishin and Vagner were instructed to move to the Russian segment to collect data from various locations.
They proceeded to close Zvezda’s fore and aft hatches and corridors that connect to other modules, then used an ultrasonic leak detector to collect data. Meanwhile, US and Russian specialists took pressure measurements overnight to try to isolate the source of the leak. Once this was done, the crew reopened the hatches between the American and Russian segments and resumed their normal activities.
Since then, the size of the leak has been attributed to a temporary change in temperature aboard the station, but the overall rate of leak has apparently not changed. Sergei Krikalyov, executive director of Russia’s manned space programs, stressed that it would take some time to find it, but that the ISS always has a slight loss of air due to the air purification system:
“These leaks are predictable. What is happening now is more than the standard leak and naturally if it lasts a long time it will require additional air supplies to the station … [The source is] is not safe. We have time. The leak exists, of course. It’s not good that it’s there, but it’s not critical. “
Roscosmos has since released new information, saying they had to further isolate the location of the leak. According to its latest results, it is located in the transfer chamber, one of the four sections of the Zvezda service module. They also reaffirmed that the “escape does not pose an immediate danger to the crew at the current escape rate and will result in only a slight deviation from the crew’s schedule.”
This is not the first time astronauts aboard the ISS have had to deal with leaks at the station. In August 2018, Expedition 56 crew members found a hole in the wall of a Russian-made Soyuz space capsule that had docked with the ISS. Although Roscosmos announced in 2019 that it has determined the origin of the leak, they have not made the information public yet.
Meanwhile, the ISS received an unmanned Cygnus cargo ship over the weekend that was launched from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. This cargo includes a new space toilet, the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), and a series of science experiments and technology demonstrators designed to advance everything from medicine to nutrition in space.
These include the ammonia electrooxidation experiment, which can convert ammonia into drinking water and electricity; the Plant Habitat-02 experiment, which will grow radishes aboard the ISS; the Onco-Selectors research, which will test cancer treatments in microgravity; a 360-degree camera that will record images for NASA’s VR ISS experience; and the Rhodium Space Rhizosphere experiment that will test how different types of soil behave in microgravity.
The ISS crew is also waiting for the next launch of the Expedition 64 astronauts who will replace them aboard the station. This crew will be made up of cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov (commander) and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov (flight engineer 2), and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins (flight engineer 1). All are currently at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and are preparing for launch on Wednesday, October 14.
Further reading: Phys.org
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