NASA: 'Expedition 63' crew members to inspect cabin air leak onboard ISS

At least three Expedition 63 crew members onboard the International Space Station (ISS) will spend the weekend inside the orbiting Russian segment of the lab investigating the source of a cabin air leak, NASA and Russian space agency Roscosmos said in an official press release. Commander Chris Cassidy and the crewmates Ivan Vagner and Anatoly Ivanishin would stay in ISS’s Zvezda service module for two days from August 22 to August 24.

The station’s atmosphere is maintained at pressure comfortable for the crew members, and a tiny bit of that air leaks over time, requiring routine re-pressurization from nitrogen tanks delivered on cargo resupply missions, NASA wrote in its press release.

Further, it explained that due to the air leak, all stations would be sealed this weekend so the mission controllers can inspect the air pressure in each of the ISS’ modules. While the test wouldn’t have any safety issues for the crew onboard, the team will have to elaborately determine a higher-than-normal leak rate in the segment that can pose risk. In September 2019, NASA and its international partners suspected indications of a slight increase above the standard cabin air leak rate. 

[Russian cosmonaut and Expedition 57 Flight Engineer Sergey Prokopyev exercises inside the Zvezda Service Module, part of the International Space Station's Russian segment. Credit: NASA]

Because of routine station operations like spacewalks and spacecraft arrivals and departures, it took time to gather enough data to characterize those measurements, NASA said in the release.

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Zvezda’s human living quarters

While the rate had increased in recent weeks, the teams are working a plan to isolate, identify, and potentially repair the source. However, the space agency clarified that the leak presented no immediate danger to the crew or the space station. Zvezda’s human living quarters activated permanent habitation nearly 20 years ago on November 20, 2020, when the Expedition 1 crew arrived at ISS. Cassidy, Vagner, and Ivanishin also will have access to the Poisk mini-research module and their Soyuz MS-16 crew ship, as per NASA.

[The Zvezda Service Module was the first fully Russian contribution to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA]

[The International Space Station Zvezda Service Module Training Mockup. Credit: NASA]

[The Expedition 63 crew will spend the weekend in the Russian segment’s Zvezda service module during a cabin air leak test. Credit: NASA]

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