NASA spots a leak on the International Space Station but says the crew is out of danger

Says the crew is out of danger

NASA announced yesterday about the leak in the International Space Station (ISS). Three crew members are on board for this mission to spot the leak and take necessary measures. NASA along with the Russian partner Roscosmos are jointly looking into the matter. The three crew members including astronauts and cosmonauts will be staying in the Russian segment of the ISS. Meanwhile, NASA is working to figure out the origin of the leak that is causing the air to release more rapidly than its usual rate.

The fact that there is a leak in the ISS has been reported for a while now, but due to the numerous experiments of spaceflights, it got suppressed. Moreover, the tanks on board took care of the proper balancing pressure whenever the air escaped at a faster rate. But, NASA is now considering it as a priority to repair the leakage to prevent any major damage in the future.

Spotting the leak

The current leakage on the ISS was first suspected in September 2019. In the beginning, when the leakage was confirmed the air leakage was taking place at a comparatively lower rate. But, gradually the leakage area might have broadened resulting in a higher rate of escaping rate. But, even after they noticed that leakage is taking place at a higher rate than usual, they didn’t have enough time to look into the matter. The recent SpaceX breakthrough and several spacewalks kept NASA immensely busy.

But, with the schedule running slow in NASA, they are finally sending crew members to spot the leakage and repair it at the earliest. NASA has now collected adequate data to isolate the origin of the leakage from other parts and repair it. Through the leakage has increased, NASA confirmed that the crew members or the ISS are not in danger.

Sending crew this weekend

The three Expedition 63 crew members scheduled for this mission are Chris Cassidy (Commander, NASA astronaut), Ivan Vagner (Russian cosmonaut), and Anatoly Ivanishin (Russian cosmonaut). They will stay in the Zvezda service module in the ISS from this Friday night to Monday morning. The Zvezda module system was designed for permanent human habitation twenty years ago. Since then many astronauts from many Expedition have stayed in those quarters. During the time of their stay, the three members will have access to the Poisk-mini-research module and Soyuz MS-16 crew ship.

Since they will closely monitor the air pressure of each module; all the hatches will remain closed this weekend. The following testing of the air pressure will examine which module is facing a higher rate of leakage than usual. Both the U.S. and the Russian experts expect the results to be ready by the end of next week.

Previous major leaks

This is not the first time that leakage has been detected on the ISS. In 2018, Russia detected a small hole in one of the country’s Soyuz spacecraft. At first, they thought the damage was caused by a meteor striking the surface but after further investigation, they anticipated a drill from inside the Soyuz. Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s Roscosmos state space corporation said that they are open to considering all kinds of theories. It might have been a technical fault by an expert but the question was if it was made intentionally.

While the Roscosmos convened a State Commission to investigate the Soyuz hole, NASA declined to go into the matters deeply. Russia also anticipated that the hole might have been made on Earth, but the question is if it is true, why they detected it after such a long period. The investigation continued for quite some time. But, this was not the first time that Russia blamed another nation for the failure of a Russian aircraft.

With another recent leakage coming into the scenario, history might repeat itself. But, let’s hope that the crew members will safely reach earth after repairing the hole.