Russia admits to leaking from space station

Russia’s space agency has admitted that the Russian part of the International Space Station is constantly leaking air.

The Russian agency says the hole does not pose a threat to the crew in the floating space lab.

Russia’s state-owned corporation Roscosmos says experts are monitoring the leak and that crews are “regularly working to detect and repair potential leaks.”

“There is no danger to the crew or the station itself,” Russian news agencies said in a statement.

The statement by Russia Cosmos came after comments by Joel Montalbano, station project manager for the US space agency NASA, who said on Wednesday that the emission of air in the Russian sector had accelerated.

However, he stressed that the hole was small and posed no threat to the safety of the crew or station operations.

As the space station is getting older, crews have to spend more time on repairs and maintenance, Roscosmos said.

Russian space authorities first reported air leaks in the Zvezda module in August 2020.

Later that year, Russian crews located her and attempted to repair her. Another vent was found in November 2021 at a different location on the Russian side of the station.

Both Russia Cosmos and NASA said the air leak posed no danger to the crew and did not affect ongoing work on the station.

Apart from this, other errors have also come to light. In October, an external backup radiator at Russia’s new science lab, Nuka (Science), leaked coolant.

Although its central temperature control system was functioning normally. Space officials said that there is no danger to the crew and the station.

The incident occurred after a coolant leak from a Russian spaceship stationed at the station.

In December 2022, a coolant leak occurred in the Soyuz crew capsule on the station, and in February 2023, another similar leak was discovered in the supply spacecraft Progress.

A Russian investigation concluded that the leak was likely caused by the impact of small meteorites and not by manufacturing defects.

The space station, which has served as a symbol of post-Cold War international cooperation, is now one of the last remaining areas of cooperation between Russia and the West amid tensions stemming from Moscow’s military action in Ukraine. is one of

NASA and its partners hope to continue operating the space station in orbit until the 2030s.

The space station’s current crew includes NASA astronauts Jasmine Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara, European Space Agency’s Andreas Mogensen, Russian cosmonauts Konstantin Borisov, Oleg Konenko and Nikolai Chubb, and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa.

Additional assistance has been sought from news organizations in the preparation of this report.

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