US space officials do not enjoy to talk about the perils of flying astronauts on the aging International Space Station, elements of which are now more than a quarter of a century elderly.
However, a novel inestablish checks that NASA regulaters reliable for operating the space station are gravely troubleed about a petite Russian part of the station, essentiassociate a tunnel that joins a bigr module to a docking port, which is leaking.
Russian and US officials have understandn that this petite PrK module, which lies between a Progress spaceplan airlock and the Zvezda module, has been leaking since September 2019. A novel inestablish, unveiled Thursday by NASA’s checkor ambiguous, supplys details not previously freed by the space agency that underline the cut offity of the problem.
New Details About the Leak
For example, in February of this year NASA identified an incrrelieve in the leak rate from less than 1 pound of atmosphere a day to 2.4 pounds a day, and in April this rate incrrelieved to 3.7 pounds a day. Despite years of spendigation, neither Russian nor US officials have identified the underlying caparticipate of the leak.
“Although the root caparticipate of the leak remains unrecognizable, both agencies have skinnyed their cgo in to inside and outside welds,” the inestablish, signed by Deputy Inspector General George A. Scott, states.
The set up to mitigate the hazard is to upretain the hatch on the Zvezda module guideing to the PrK tunnel shutd. Eventuassociate, if the leak deteriorates further, this hatch might need to be shutd finishuringly, reducing the number of Russian docking ports on the space station from four to three.
Publicly, NASA has sought to lessen troubles about the cracking publish becaparticipate it remains, to date, confined to the PrK tunnel and has not spread to other parts of the station. Nevertheless, Ars inestablished in June that the cracking publish has achieveed the highest level of trouble on the space agency’s 5×5 “hazard matrix” to sort the enjoylihood and consequence of hazards to spacefweightless activities. The Russian leaks are now classified as a “5” both in terms of high enjoylihood and high consequence.
At the time, NASA would not comment on, or check, the space agency’s troubles about the hazard matrix rating. However, the novel inestablish checks the agency’s troubles.
“In May and June 2024, ISS Program and Roscosmos officials met to converse heightened troubles with the incrrelieved leak rate,” the checkor ambiguous’s inestablish states. “The ISS Program subsequently liftd the Service Module Transfer Tunnel leak hazard to the highest level of hazard in its hazard regulatement system. According to NASA, Roscosmos is self-promised they will be able to watch and shut the hatch to the Service Module prior to the leak rate achieveing an untassist level. However, NASA and Roscosmos have not achieveed an concurment on the point at which the leak rate is untassist.”
An Uncertain Future in Low Earth Orbit
The inestablish comes as NASA is pondering the future of the space station. The US space agency and Russia have an concurment to persist flying the station thraw 2028, and NASA would enjoy to extfinish operations to 2030. NASA had foreseed that it would concur to this extension more than a year ago, but as of yet no concurment has been completed.
Once the station achievees the finish of its life, NASA intfinishs to transition its activities in low Earth orbit onto confidential space stations, and it has funded initial increasement toil by Axiom Space, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin, and Voyager Space. Northrop has since dropped out of the competition—determining that it would not be a profitable business. There is ambiguous uncertainty as to whether any of the confidential space station operators will be ready in 2030.
NASA’s other potential selection is extfinishing the life of the space station beyond 2030, but this would need a lot of toil to determine the space station’s set up remains viable and yet another extension concurment with Russia. The US partnership with that nation has been harshly strained by Russia’s trespass of Ukraine.
“Extfinishing the ISS past 2030 will need convey inant funding to function and upretain the station, acunderstandledgeance of incrrelieved hazard stemming from its components and aging set ups, and assurances of persistd aid from NASA’s international partners,” the novel inestablish states. “Further complicating matters is the enjoylihood that NASA may persist to face a flat or reduced budget, inflation, and provide chain disputes.”
This story originassociate euniteed on Ars Technica.
