International Space Station crew repairs small pressure leak

James Dean | Florida Today

Astronauts on Thursday applied gauze and glue to a small hole discovered in a Russian spacecraft that caused a slight drop in cabin pressure aboard the International Space Station.

NASA and Russian space officials said pressure was holding steady and the six-person, multi-national crew flying 250 miles overhead was safe.

“Throughout the day, the crew was never in any danger,” NASA said in an update posted online. “Flight controllers will monitor the pressure trends overnight.”

Ground teams detected a pressure loss overnight Wednesday, but allowed the Expedition 56 crew to continue sleeping because there was no imminent threat.

Led by NASA’s Drew Feustel, the crew closed module hatches and isolated the leak, ultimately finding a two-millimeter hole in one of two Russian Soyuz spacecraft docked to the station.

Cosmonauts initially put Kapton tape over the hole. Later, they plugged it with gauze and sealed it with epoxy.

Russian flight controllers pumped oxygen from a resupply ship into the laboratory complex — which is as roomy as a five-bedroom home — to restore the correct atmospheric pressure.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, formed a commission to investigate the potential causes of the leak, which might include a hit from space debris.

The tiny hole was in the Soyuz labeled MS-09, which carried NASA's Serena Auñón-Chancellor, Alexander Gerst of Germany and Sergey Prokopyev of Russia to the outpost in June from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The hole was in the orbital module, which does not return to Earth, and so far it does not appear the spacecraft's ability to return home has been compromised.

Feustel at one point worried that if the leak was not sealed properly, the Soyuz might be forced to make a premature departure. It is scheduled to fly home in December.

A different Soyuz, labeled MS-08, is scheduled to depart Oct. 4 with Feustal, NASA's Ricky Arnold and cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev.

U.S. and European crew members are still tentatively slated to perform at least two spacewalks next month to swap out batteries.

“All station systems are stable and the crew is planning to return to its regular schedule of work on Friday,” NASA said in its statement.

Contact Dean at 321-917-4534 or jdean@floridatoday.com.

Twitter: @flatoday_jdean

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