Crew Continues Troubleshooting as Tests Isolate Small Leak
HOUSTON (NASA PR) — Late Monday night, the Expedition 63 crew was awakened by flight controllers to continue troubleshooting a small leak on the International Space Station that appeared to grow in size. Ground analysis of the modules tested overnight have isolated the leak location to the main work area of the Zvezda Service Module. Additional work is underway to precisely locate the source of the leak.
The leak, which has been investigated for several weeks, poses no immediate danger to the crew at the current leak rate and only a slight deviation to the crew’s schedule.
NASA astronaut and station commander Chris Cassidy and Roscosmos cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner were instructed to move into the Russian segment to collect data at various locations in the Russian modules. The size of the leak identified overnight has since been attributed to a temporary temperature change aboard the station with the overall rate of leak remaining unchanged.
Previous leak checks were conducted in the modules in the U.S. segment of the station.
One by one, the crew closed hatches between Zvezda’s aft and forward sections and Zvezda’s passageways to the Pirs Docking Compartment and the Poisk module while using an ultrasonic leak detector to collect data. Throughout the night, pressure measurements were taken by U.S. and Russian specialists to try to isolate the source of the leak. At the completion of the overnight checks, the crew opened hatches once again between the U.S. and Russian segments and resumed regular activities.
The crew is preparing for this weekend’s arrival of the uncrewed Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo craft which is scheduled for launch Thursday night from the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, as well as the upcoming launch of the next trio of residents for the station. NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov are at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, preparing for launch to the complex on Oct. 14.
10 responses to “Crew Continues Troubleshooting as Tests Isolate Small Leak”
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soon the Russian segment is going to have to go …
Ground analysis of the modules tested overnight have isolated the leak location to the main work area of the Zvezda Service Module. Additional work is underway to precisely locate the source of the leak.
Well then, that’s that.
It’s a good metaphor about the general state of the Russian space program.
A 50% solution of Dawn works great.
Once the precise location of the leak is tracked down, I hope the crew uses American duct tape to fix it.
At the very least, American chewing gum.
Preferably Beeman’s.
It’s 20 years old and provides the life support for the ISS. Guess it’s starting to break down since when it was designed the ISS was going to be deorbited in 2015 using the Shuttle. Wonder what will start breaking next on it.
if there is, as I believe there will be a Biden administration the destiny 🙂 of ISS will be the predominate space policy decision
Trumps lunar goal is a dead end and will die, there is not enough money to do it
but we have the money with cancellation of SLS and Orion to fix ISS and start the seque to private operation of ISS with government as an anchor customer. part of it is going to be squaring up with the Russians and coming to some conclusion as to how and what their contribution is
…Trumps lunar goal is a dead end and will die, there is not enough money to do it…
I dunno. Lotsa international interest and money starting to flow toward Artemis. And the Dems seem willing enough to fund it, so long as Trump doesn’t get the credit.
The life support equipment on Zvezda has barely worked for years. Nearly the entire life support load is borne by equipment in the non-Russian modules.