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The International Space Station (ISS) on December 8, 2021. (archive image) © Nasa
An oxygen leak aboard the ISS is doubling its output and raising questions about the future of the aging space station.
Washington DC - The International Space Station (ISS) recently celebrated a significant event: On November 20, 1998, the first ISS module, the Russian "Zarya", was sent into space by rocket.
A quarter of a century later, the space station continues to orbit our planet and has been continuously inhabited by humans since November 2000.
But the ISS is showing signs of age - there are repeated reports of leaks and other problems with the station.
A leak that was discovered for the first time in the Russian part of the space station in 2019 is currently causing unrest.
Since then, the US space agency Nasa and its Russian counterpart Roscosmos have intensively investigated the leak and tried to repair it, as
spacenews.com
reports.
Leak in the Russian ISS module “Zvezda” causes loss of oxygen
The leak is located in the Russian “Zvezda” module, in an area known as “PrK.”
This area can be sealed to minimize air loss from the rest of the station.
About three weeks ago, according to Joel Montalbano, ISS program manager at NASA, the amount of oxygen escaping into space through the leak is said to have doubled.
“The teams are watching it.
We are working with our Russian colleagues on the next step,” explained Montalbano, adding reassuringly: “It has no impact on the safety of the crew or the operation of the ISS.”
The leak is now losing more than 0.9 kilograms of oxygen per day - about twice the amount previously measured.
At a NASA presentation in November there was talk of 0.45 kilograms per day, reports the specialist portal.
At the time, it was said that the leak rate was “manageable” and could be addressed through measures such as closing the hatch.
“This is still well below our specified leak rate on the space station, but slightly higher than our historical leak rate,”
spacenews.com
quotes from the presentation.
“There is no threat to the crew or the station itself”
The
Guardian
quotes a statement from Roscosmos: “There is no threat to the crew or the station itself,” it says.
Specialists would monitor the leak and the crew would “regularly carry out work to locate and repair possible leaks.”
This is not the first time that the Russian part of the ISS has caused problems.
Holes or cracks have caused unrest several times.
When the new Russian module “Nauka” reached the International Space Station in the summer of 2021, it fired its engines unexpectedly and caused the ISS to rotate.
NASA lost control of the station for some time.
A few months later, a similar incident occurred with a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
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The International Space Station (ISS) is expected to burn up in Earth's atmosphere in 2031
The NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara, the ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen, the Russian cosmonauts Konstantin Borisov, Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and the Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa currently live and work on board the International Space Station.
The Russian Kononenko recently set a record: no one has been in space longer than him.
It is uncertain how many more records can be set on the ISS.
NASA plans to decommission the aging space station by 2031 at the latest and let it burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.
A government-operated successor station is not planned - the USA relies on commercial space stations that can also be used by space organizations.
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