{"id":18385,"date":"2018-08-30T18:47:24","date_gmt":"2018-08-30T10:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/dont-panic-space-station-crew-works-to-patch-up-tiny-air-leak-in-docked-soyuz-craft\/"},"modified":"2018-08-30T18:47:24","modified_gmt":"2018-08-30T10:47:24","slug":"dont-panic-space-station-crew-works-to-patch-up-tiny-air-leak-in-docked-soyuz-craft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/dont-panic-space-station-crew-works-to-patch-up-tiny-air-leak-in-docked-soyuz-craft\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t panic: Space station crew works to patch up tiny air leak in docked Soyuz craft"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Soyuz
An air leak on the International Space Station has been localized to a Russian Soyuz spacecraft like this one. The orbital compartment is the upper chamber of the Soyuz shown here. (NASA Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The International Space Station\u2019s flight controllers detected a minute pressure leak overnight, but a temporary fix was made with epoxy and a gauze wipe. The six-person crew is in no danger, NASA said.<\/p>\n

In a status update, NASA said the leak was isolated to a hole that\u2019s about 2 millimeters (0.07 inches) in diameter in the orbital compartment of the Soyuz MS-09\u2019s orbital module, which is attached to Russia\u2019s Rassvet module. \u201cThis is a section of the Soyuz that does not return to Earth,\u201d NASA explained.<\/p>\n

The leak rate was minuscule, and initially the crew put Kapton tape over the hole to slow the loss of pressure even further.<\/p>\n

Troubleshooting and repair work continued. At one point, NASA astronaut Drew Feustel, who serves as the space station\u2019s commander, counseled caution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m inclined to ask my Russian crewmates to not put the epoxy in there, because we sort of feel like we\u2019ve got one shot at this, and if we screw it up, then the implications are [that] one of these vehicles is going home,\u201d Feustel told Mission Control.<\/p>\n

After some debate, Russian controllers agreed with NASA\u2019s team to take more time to investigate the leak. Feustel said the crew was testing a plug that was held in place with tape, and a Russian crewmate reported that the results looked promising.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no leak,\u201d cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev told Russian Mission Control. \u201cIt\u2019s good news.\u201d<\/p>\n

Controllers at NASA said their readings also showed that the pressure had stabilized. After monitoring the situation for the better part of an hour, the space station crew pressed a sealant-laden wipe into the leak site to firm up the temporary patch.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the patching is complete, additional leak checks will be performed,\u201d NASA said. \u201cAll station systems are stable, and the crew is in no danger as the work to develop a long-term repair continues.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An air leak on the International Space Station has been localized to a Russian Soyuz spacecraft like this one. The orbital compartment is the upper chamber of the Soyuz shown here. (NASA Photo) The International Space Station\u2019s flight controllers detected a minute pressure leak overnight, but a temporary fix was made with epoxy and a […]<\/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":[717,190,1302],"class_list":["post-18385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-international-space-station","tag-nasa","tag-soyuz"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18385"}],"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=18385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}