Moscow. October 6. INTERFAX.RU – The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration has denied press statements about the appearance of new cracks in the International Space Station (ISS), said on Wednesday the head of the NASA program on the ISS, Joel Montalbano.
“There have been reports in the media that there are leaks or cracks on board (ISS – IF). We do not find anything, just that small leak in the service module,” Montalbano said.
A NASA spokesman noted that a search for new possible leaks is being carried out jointly with the Russian side, and also announced plans to install new pressure sensors.
“For future plans, we are working on this to better understand and characterize what is happening with the module. The next step is to install new pressure sensors. We have already brought pressure sensors this fall and are working with Russian colleagues to install them for receiving new information. The port of this module can receive ships, and we are scheduled to dock with this port of the Progress ship this month. Operationally, this does not affect us, but the fact that we have a source of leakage is that the team researches and on what he works with Russian colleagues, “he said.
On August 31, the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, announced that the cosmonauts would conduct a full survey of the Russian segment of the ISS to check for new cracks there.
On August 30, Roskosmos executive director for manned programs, Sergei Krikalev, told Interfax that he had no information about the presence of new cracks on the ISS, including blind ones. So he commented on the information that appeared in the media about the presence of blind cracks in the Russian Zarya module on the ISS. At the same time, he did not rule out the potential presence of cracks, but, according to him, “even if there are blind cracks, in this case, you can fly and continue working for another 20 years.”
In August last year, it was reported that an air leak was detected on the ISS. The crew of the station managed to localize it in the transition chamber of the Zvezda module. In October 2020, the cosmonauts were able to find the first crack about 4 cm in size and repair it with temporary means. After that, the rate of pressure drop on the ISS decreased, but the leak persisted.
