NASA to try to track down a leak on the International Space Station this weekend

NASA and its Russian partner Roscosmos will attempt to track down the source of a tiny leak on the International Space Station this weekend, a leak that has caused a somewhat faster release of air from the ISS from a year. The three crew members currently aboard the station will remain in the Russian segment of the ISS this weekend, while NASA attempts to isolate the source of the leak in other parts of the spacecraft.

NASA first noticed that there could be a leak at the station in September 2019. The air inside the station slowly escapes from the ISS over time, but officials have noticed that the air seemed to escape at a slightly faster rate than usual. Since then, the leak appears to have increased slightly. However, NASA didn’t have much time to investigate. Things have been pretty busy on the ISS since September, with astronauts doing various spacewalks and new vehicles like SpaceX’s Crew Dragon bringing people to and from the ISS. The leak was not a big deal since the tanks on board the ISS can help maintain station pressure whenever air escapes.

Now that the schedule has slowed down, NASA has time to determine where the leak is coming from. NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner will meet together in the Russian segment after closing all hatches to other ISS modules. Over the weekend, NASA will monitor the atmospheric pressure levels in each of the modules to locate the offending leak. The results of the test should be available next week. NASA says the crew will have plenty of room inside the Russian segment and the crew is not in danger.

Leaks appear from time to time on the ISS, but one leak in 2018 attracted a lot more attention than the others. At the time, astronauts traced a leak on the ISS to a small hole inside a visiting Russian Soyuz capsule docked at the ISS. Conspiracy theories abounded in the Russian press that the hole could have been drilled from inside the Soyuz by someone aboard the ISS. Two cosmonauts even made a spacewalk to examine the hole from the outside. In the end, Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin said Russian officials know how the hole got there, but they were unwilling to disclose the cause.