NASA and its Russian partner Roscosmos will this weekend try to hunt down the source of a very small leak on the International Space Station, one that was released from the ISS a little faster last year. The three crew members currently on board the station will remain in the Russian segment of the ISS over the weekend, while NASA tries to isolate the origin of the leak in other parts of the spacecraft.
NASA first noticed that it may have a leak at the station back in September of 2019. Air inside the station is slowly leaking out of the ISS over time, but officials note that the air appears to be escaping at a slightly higher rate than normal. Since then, the leak seems to be increasing a bit. However, NASA did not have much time to investigate. Things have been pretty busy on the ISS since September, with astronauts leading several spacewalks and new cars like SpaceX’s Crew Dragon bringing people to and from the ISS. The leak has not been a major problem, as tanks on board the ISS can help maintain the station’s pressure as air escapes.
Now that the schedule is slower, NASA has time to figure out where the leak is coming from. NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner will be bunkering together in the Russian segment after closing all gaps for the other ISS modules. Over the weekend, NASA will monitor the air pressure levels in each of the modules to determine the impending leak. Test results should be available next week. NASA says that the crew will have a lot of space in the Russian segment and that the crew is not in danger.
Leaks pop up on the ISS from time to time, but one leak in 2018 received far more attention than the others. Currently, astronauts are tracing a leak on board the ISS to a small hole in a visit from the Russian Soyuz capsule to the ISS docked. Conspiracy theories abound in Russian press that the hole could have been drilled from inside the Soyuz by someone on board the ISS. Two cosmonauts even did a spacewalk to explore the hole from the outside. Finally, Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin indicated that Russian officials knew how the hole got there, but they would not tell the cause.
