Astronauts are temporarily staying in the Russian part of the ISS.

The International Space Station (ISS), located about 400 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, is not completely airtight. A minimal amount of air escapes every day. This is of course carefully monitored. But now it appears that a lot of air is seeping away. And that means precious air is leaking somewhere.

Lek
Already in September 2019, NASA noticed a slight increase in the amount of escaping air for the first time. However, the quantity was so small that it did not cause any further concern to anyone. NASA did want to keep an eye on progress. But several spacewalks and the arrival and departure of spacecraft delayed this. It means that it took a bit more time to gather enough data to further map the measurements. Now everything appears to have been figured out. And the conclusion is not a bit worrisome: the amount of air escaping is increasing more and more. And so it must now be investigated what exactly is going on.

Hunting
NASA now wants to investigate the leak further in the coming days. First of all, an attempt must of course be made to locate the leak. This weekend, all hatches of the space station will be closed so that mission controllers can check the air pressure in each module. These tests must show in which module the leakage rate is higher than normal.

Star module
The astronauts on board the ISS need not worry too much. Because right now the air is leaking at such a steady rate that it does not pose a direct danger to the crew or the space station itself. The three crew members will, however, spend the coming weekend in the Russian part of the ISS. These are the American commander Chris Cassidy and the Russian space explorers Ivan Viktorovich and Anatoli Ivanishin. They will stay in the so-called Zvezda module from Friday evening to Monday morning.

The crew members will stay temporarily in the Russian part of the ISS. Image: NASA

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It is not the first time that a leak has been detected on the ISS. A leak was also discovered two years ago after the air pressure in the ISS suddenly dropped. Even then, the different compartments of the International Space Station were closed off one by one, in the hope of being able to trace the exact location of the leak. Ultimately, the leak was found to be in the upper part of a Soyuz spacecraft attached to the ISS. The hole was temporarily closed with sealant and tape. In the meantime, a committee was appointed to investigate the cause of the hole. At first, it was thought of a collision with flying debris in space. But soon all sorts of things went wild rumors about the cause of the leak round. That rumor mill was, in a way, cranked up by NASA itself, when the space agency released a photo of the leak into the wide world. Many thought the hole looked very much like a borehole. And a new theory was born: someone had tried to sabotage the ISS or at best had been a bit clumsy. NASA remained silent for days, while the Russians were determined to get to the bottom of things. That research has now been completed long and broadly. But who or what was responsible for the hole has never been revealed.

Hopefully, what is behind the discovered leak will soon become apparent. Meanwhile, the crew members will continue their normal duties as much as possible. As soon as the leak has been detected, the exact cause of the leak can be examined. The American and Russian specialists expect to present the preliminary results at the end of next week.