Things aren¡¯t going so good up on the International Space Station. Reports have revealed that the ISS has been leaking air in larger quantities than it is usually supposed to.??
In order to eliminate the risk, the three-person crew has been asked to confine themselves to a single module for the next couple of days. The leak was first detected sometime in September 2019 and the rate of leakage has increased gradually, way above normal levels.?
Mission controllers aren¡¯t still able to find the root cause of the problem. They conducted routine space operations. NASA in its blog has stated that this specific leak is still within segment specifications and doesn¡¯t present any immediate danger to the crew onboard the ISS. Teams are now working on a plan to isolate, identify and repair this, as per the space agency.
For this, NASA Astronaut Chris Cassidy and Roscoscos cosmonauts Ivan Vanger and Anatoly Ivanishin spent the weekend in Russia¡¯s Zvezda service module. With the crew in the Russian module, all ISS hatches were shut down in order to monitor the air pressure in each module to learn which module is losing most air.?
In case you were wondering how come there are only three astronauts in the crew currently, it¡¯s because Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley departed from the ISS back to Earth aboard the Crew Dragon capsule after spending nearly three months on the ISS.
It might seem like the astronauts would be all crammed together in a single module, but in fact, it has plenty of room in it. This was the living quarters that enabled permanent human habitation to begin around 20 years ago when the Expedition crew arrived at the station on November 2, 2000.?
According to NASA, Cassidy, Vagner, and Ivanishin also will have access to the Poisk mini-research module and their Soyuz MS-16 crew ship for the duration of their stay.