{"id":12261,"date":"2020-08-20T18:13:46","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T10:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/engineers-troubleshooting-small-space-station-air-leak\/"},"modified":"2020-08-20T18:13:46","modified_gmt":"2020-08-20T10:13:46","slug":"engineers-troubleshooting-small-space-station-air-leak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/engineers-troubleshooting-small-space-station-air-leak\/","title":{"rendered":"Engineers troubleshooting small space station air leak"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
Russian cosmonauts Ivan Vagner and Anatoly Ivanishin inside the International Space Station\u2019s Zvezda service module earlier this year. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Engineers are troubleshooting a small air leak aboard the International Space Station that was discovered last September, NASA reported Thursday. While it poses no safety threat, the lab\u2019s three-man crew plans to seal themselves in the Russian segment of the station this weekend to help engineers pin down the leak\u2019s location.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the space station hatches will be closed this weekend so mission controllers can carefully monitor the air pressure in each module,\u201d NASA said in a blog post. \u201cThe test presents no safety concern for the crew.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe test should determine which module is experiencing a higher-than-normal leak rate. The U.S. and Russian specialists expect preliminary results should be available for review by the end of next week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Expedition 63 commander Chris Cassidy and his two Russian crewmates, Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner, were launched to the station aboard the Soyuz MS-16\/62S spacecraft April 9. They\u2019ve had the lab complex to themselves since the two-man crew of a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule undocked and returned to Earth on Aug. 2.<\/p>\n

NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and two more cosmonauts are scheduled for launch to the station aboard a Soyuz ferry ship on Oct. 14, One week later, Cassidy and his crewmates plan to depart and two days after that, NASA plans to send up four more crew members aboard another Crew Dragon capsule, boosting the station\u2019s crew to seven.<\/p>\n

Engineers want to find and, if possible, plug the leak while just three crew members are aboard, allowing more flexibility with closing off modules as required for troubleshooting.<\/p>\n

Cassidy, Ivanishin and Vagner will spend the weekend sealed inside the Russian Zvezda module where they will also have access to their Soyuz MS-16\/62S spacecraft and the Poisk research module.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe station\u2019s atmosphere is maintained at pressure comfortable for the crew members, and a tiny bit of that air leaks over time, requiring routine repressurization from nitrogen tanks delivered on cargo resupply missions,\u201d NASA said in the blog post.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn September 2019, NASA and its international partners first saw indications of a slight increase above the standard cabin air leak rate. Because of routine station operations like spacewalks and spacecraft arrivals and departures, it took time to gather enough data to characterize those measurements.\u201d<\/p>\n

The leak rate has \u201cslightly increased,\u201d the post went on, prompting plans to \u201cisolate, identify and potentially repair the source. The leak is still within segment specifications and presents no immediate danger to the crew or the space station.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Russian cosmonauts Ivan Vagner and Anatoly Ivanishin inside the International Space Station\u2019s Zvezda service module earlier this year. Credit: NASA Engineers are troubleshooting a small air leak aboard the International Space Station that was discovered last September, NASA reported Thursday. While it poses no safety threat, the lab\u2019s […]<\/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-12261","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\/12261"}],"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=12261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}