{"id":12189,"date":"2020-10-05T23:44:30","date_gmt":"2020-10-05T15:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/search-continues-for-small-air-leak-on-space-station\/"},"modified":"2020-10-05T23:44:30","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T15:44:30","slug":"search-continues-for-small-air-leak-on-space-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/search-continues-for-small-air-leak-on-space-station\/","title":{"rendered":"Search continues for small air leak on space station"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
File photo of the International Space Station\u2019s Zvezda service module. Credit: Roscosmos<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Crew members on the International Space Station over the weekend continued trying to pinpoint the location of a small air leak in the research outpost\u2019s Russian Zvezda service module, one of the oldest sections of the orbiting laboratory.<\/p>\n

As of Monday, the station crew had not located the precise site of the leak, but officials believe they have traced it to a transfer compartment at the rear section of the Zvezda module, near an aft docking port where a Russian Progress resupply freighter is attached.<\/p>\n

Space station commander Chris Cassidy and his Russian crewmates Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner have helped ground  teams search for the source of the airlock for a couple of months. Ground controllers detected the leak in September 2019, and the station crew isolated themselves inside the Russian segment of the complex for a weekend in August to help track down where air is escaping.<\/p>\n

Kenny Todd, deputy manager of the space station program at NASA, said Sept. 29 that mission control teams in Moscow and Houston detected several increases in the leak rate in recent weeks. But U.S. and Russian officials have stressed the leak is not a concern for the safety of the crew or the space station.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation poses no danger to crew\u2019s life and health, and doesn\u2019t hinder the station\u2019s continued crewed operation,\u201d tweeted Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.<\/p>\n

The faster leak rate made it easier to identify where the space station\u2019s atmosphere is escaping, Todd said.<\/p>\n

As of Sept. 29, Roscosmos said the leak rate was equivalent to about 1 millimeter of mercury, or 0.02 psi, every eight hours.<\/p>\n

\"\"
This illustration shows the visiting vehicles docked with the International Space Station as of Monday, Oct. 5, 2020. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe think, at this point, it\u2019s in the Russian segment, the service module area,\u201d Todd said. \u201cAgain, we\u2019re continuing to look at all the data from the test but we do know and have confirmed with our Russian colleagues \u2026 that we think there\u2019s something going on there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cassidy, Ivanishin and Vagner have employed leak detectors scan window seals and other possible locations for the leak. Over the weekend, the Russian cosmonauts place plastic bags over possible leak sites to see if they deflated. When that turned up no sign that the leak was found, Russian mission control instructed the cosmonauts to tape seals on the Zvezda module\u2019s aft docking port to see that those were the problem.<\/p>\n

Despite the efforts, the leak was still present Monday.<\/p>\n

The space station has spare air tanks that could be used to replenish the lab\u2019s atmosphere. And there were two new high-pressure gas tanks on Northrop Grumman\u2019s Cygnus supply ship that arrived at the space station Monday.<\/p>\n

With the delivery of more gas tanks on the Cygnus spacecraft, Todd said the space station will \u201cbe OK out into the spring of next year,\u201d assuming the leak rate remains unchanged.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this is not necessarily a near-term problem as long as the leak rate stays where it\u2019s at today,\u201d Todd said. \u201cBut if it were to get worse, obviously we\u2019ll circle back up and revisit that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Expedition 63 commander Chris Cassidy works with a leak detector on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Space station managers are constantly reassessing the leak as ground teams prepare for a pair of critical crew launches later this month. The Russian Soyuz MS-17 spaceship is set for launch Oct. 14 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with Russian commander Sergey Ryzhikov, flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins.<\/p>\n

The Soyuz MS-14 crew will join Cassidy, Ivanishin and Vagner for a week-long handover, then Cassidy\u2019s crew will depart the station and land in Kazakhstan aboard their Soyuz capsule.<\/p>\n

Four more astronauts \u2014 Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, and Soichi Noguchi \u2014 are scheduled to blast off Oct. 31 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship, raising the station crew size to seven. It will be the first time a long-duration crew of seven has lived on the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we get closer to every one of our flights going to the International Space Station, if this problem continues, then we will constantly be looking at our consumables, be looking at our logistics train, and making sure that we can stay ahead of it,\u201d Todd said.<\/p>\n

Once the crew pinpoints the leak, engineers will examine ways to seal it up and fix the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut first and foremost, our goal is to find the leak,\u201d Todd said. \u201cWhen you look at a vehicle the size of the space station, it\u2019s got valves hat go to vacuum, it\u2019s got lots of different lines, plumbing, it\u2019s got windows with seals. So there\u2019s a lot of acreage with a lot of different leak paths that could be potential spots for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

But narrowing down the leak to the Zvezda service module, which launched in July 2000, helps engineers get closer to identifying its exact location, Todd said.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of a bunch of haystacks, we\u2019re down to maybe just one haystack, but it\u2019s still a needle we\u2019re looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

File photo of the International Space Station\u2019s Zvezda service module. Credit: Roscosmos Crew members on the International Space Station over the weekend continued trying to pinpoint the location of a small air leak in the research outpost\u2019s Russian Zvezda service module, one of the oldest sections of the orbiting laboratory. As of Monday, the station […]<\/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":[2032,2033,2034,1545,717,2035,190,234],"class_list":["post-12189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-anatoly-ivanishin","tag-chris-cassidy","tag-expedition-63","tag-human-spaceflight","tag-international-space-station","tag-ivan-vagner","tag-nasa","tag-roscosmos"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12189"}],"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=12189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}