MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th December, 2020) Experts from the Moscow Region-based Mission Control Center asked the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) to help find another place of air leak in the Russian module Zvezda, since the station's gas reserves to compensate for the loss of air are running out, according to cosmonauts' talks with the Earth broadcast by NASA.
In October, a crack, which caused an air leak, was discovered and temporarily repaired in the intermediate chamber of the Zvezda module. At the same time, the executive director for manned programs of Roskosmos, Sergei Krikalev, said that the air leak on the ISS might not be where the crack had been found, and the version about air leakage from the crack required confirmation.
"Now we practically do not understand in which part of the intermediate chamber we still have an additional leak," the center's expert told cosmonaut Sergei Ryzhikov.
He asked the crew to use US bags and covers by placing them on various places in the intermediate chamber to help narrow down the search for another leak.
"We would like to see such an event happen before the [New Year] holiday, so that we could celebrate the holiday twice ... Without your hands, we, unfortunately, cannot do anything," the expert noted.
According to him, the ISS is already running out of air reserves to replenish the leak.
"We are now losing the gas safety reserve and will have to solve this problem in the near future," he said.
One of the proposals of Russian experts is to keep the "leaking" intermediate chamber permanently closed.
"The longer we keep it closed, the more we will save air and even if later this intermediate chamber will need to be pressurized," he explained.
