An air leak was found on the ISS. What's next?

Living inside the International Space Stationastronauts from different countries and they all need oxygen. The air necessary for the crew's life is produced by special equipment, but the station's tightness is far from ideal and small air leaks occur there regularly. In September 2019, the station began to lose more air, and at the end of this summer, the losses became even greater. The station crew searched for the leak for almost a month and found it only at the end of September. It turned out that the air was leaking from the main Russian module "Zvezda", where our cosmonauts live and conduct scientific research. But why was the leak location so difficult to find and what will the station crew do next?

Air leakage occurs in the Russian module of the station

Finding air leaks

The scientific publication shared the good newsScience Alert. At the moment, there are three people at the station: Roscosmos cosmonauts Ivan Wagner and Anatoly Ivanishin, as well as the American astronaut Chris Cassidy. After discovering an intensified leak at the end of August, they temporarily settled in the Zvezda module. No leak was found in any of the other modules, so the researchers speculated that air was leaking from the station segment where the astronauts were hiding. Yes, we are talking about the Zvezda module. There was also speculation that the leak occurs in the "Search" segment, which serves as a port for docking spaceships and a place for the crew to prepare for spacewalk.

Location of the "Star" module

Initially, NASA and Roskosmos did not dare to conductsearch for a leak in the Zvezda module. This is because before that it needs to be blocked. But it is directly connected to the Soyuz spacecraft, and in the event of an emergency, the crew will not be able to return to Earth. The command came to the conclusion that the check was worth all the risks, only at the end of September. Zvezda's hatches were blocked and the crew temporarily lived in the American segment of the station. Most likely, our cosmonauts will stay there for at least several days, because the leak was found on the Russian side.

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What are astronauts doing?

As mentioned above, the "Star" module isthe main thing for Russian cosmonauts. In this segment of the station, our researchers sleep, eat, wash and carry out their scientific activities. The leak was detected using a so-called ultrasonic leak detector, which is able to pick up airflow noise that is not audible to the human ear. There is such noise inside the Zvezda module, only at the moment a specific leak has not been found. The search continues, and at the moment our cosmonauts will indeed have to visit their American colleagues. Their segment has oxygen generators, a kitchen, a source of drinking water and everything you need for life.

You can always find out who is on the ISS on the mks.space website

Finding a leak came on a tense one for the stationtime. In the first week of October, the Northrop Grumman spacecraft will be sent to the ISS with an experimental toilet. And on October 14, the next crew is scheduled to launch, consisting of Russian cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov and Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, as well as NASA astronaut Kate Rubins. At the end of October scheduled Crew Dragon's second controlled flight with three American astronauts and one researcher from Japan.

Crew Dragon's next flight will take place on October 31

It is reported that the leak inside the Zvezda module is notdangerous, but the hole still needs to be found and closed. How long it will take for all this is still unknown. This is not the first such case in the Russian segment of the ISS. In 2018, a leak was discovered inside the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft. It is believed that the hole was made by a person, but Roskosmos still does not want to share the details. A year ago, the head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin confirmed that they had already completed the investigation, but they were not going to publish the results.

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Possibly to close the hole in the module"Zvezda", the crew members will have to go into outer space. Last time it was simply necessary, and my colleague Nikolay Khizhnyak wrote about this event in detail. You can read the details in this article.