Cosmonauts are working on stubborn leaks: ISS crew is safe

While two Russian cosmonauts have repeatedly tried to seal a leak on the ISS International Space Station, NASA has asked three space drivers and two space drivers to get safe in a space capsule. This has been announced by a spokeswoman of the U.S. Space Agency on the short news service X and assures that it is a pure precaution. In addition to the ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, their NASA compelling Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway and Christopher Williams have moved back to the Dragon Room Capsule. To them, however, the cosmonaut Andrej Fedjayev, he is with the capsule of SpaceX flew to the ISS. In the meantime, the five were allowed to return, the works were paused.

Leak since 2019 a problem

The “extensive repair work” to which the Russian space agency has now decided on its module Swesda also means that the persistent leak was apparently not closed there. For years, air has escaped from the so-called PrK tunnel, which connects the module with that airlock, where Russian space capsules dock. It was only at the beginning of the year that NASA was able to maintain the pressure in the affected PrK tunnel. It was a bit premature, according to Roskosmos, from 1. May 2026 again found a slow pressure drop in the tunnel. Publicly, it is not known how much air has escaped, but the procedure at least suggests that the situation could be more serious.

Video by heise

For the first time a leak was discovered in the Russian part of the ISS already in 2019, in the beginning of 2024 the amount of escaping air had become noticeably larger. In the meantime, about 900 grams of cabin air per day disappeared. But because it was behind a sluice that could be sealed, it only happened when it was open. NASA has repeatedly assured that the problem was “controllable” and has been within the permitted specifications. Nevertheless, it was always working to close the leak. In the meantime, even the speech was about a “fair fire” that the responsible persons had in their hands but they did not get erased. What exactly the two cosmonauts have tried now is not known. According to the NASA spokesperson, further data should be collected.

(mho)