Astronauts aboard the International Space Station now appear to have found a leak at the space station that has been difficult to detect. The search has been going on for several weeks, but the astronauts who flew to the space station yesterday had special equipment to help them find the leak. The leak has not been considered a threat to the space station’s residents due to its small size.
At the end of September, the astronauts were shifted in the middle of the night and sent off to find the leak. Then it seemed to have increased between days, but later it turned out that this was not the case.
During the search, however, the astronauts discovered that the leak was in the Russian part of the space station called Zvezda. There you will find important equipment regarding oxygen and other things that enable spacecraft to live in the space station. This equipment broke down yesterday but it was old and worn out, according to a Moscow Times report.
Comparable equipment in the US part of the space station is still working, and the astronauts are not in any danger due to the failure.
This part of the space station also houses two astronauts.
There are now six astronauts onboard the space station. Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov from Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, as well as Kate Rubins from NASA, arrived yesterday. Chris Cassidy, Anatoly Ivanishin, and Ivan Vagner were previously on board, but they are due to return to Earth next week.
Ivanishin sent that message to Earth today that the leak may have been detected onboard the Zvezda. They were told to try to use a special tape to stop the leak later today. They were also asked to send pictures and videos to Earth.
Based on the information received from the ISS-63 crew about the possible air leak location, MCC-M will soon advise the crew on further actions and methods to search the leak location. Thus, based on the works conducted, the crew will be able to localize the possible leak area.
