MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th June, 2021) Russian specialists continue looking into the causes of the cracks in the International Space Station module Zvezda and have ruled out metal fatigue as a potential explanation, Sergey Krikalev, an aide to the head of Roscosmos, has told Sputnik.
"They are currently ruling out various alternatives ... They deliberately studied that issue and ruled out [metal] fatigue," Krikalev said at GLEX-2021, adding that there could be dozens of explanations.
A small air leak was first detected at the ISS in September 2019. Russian cosmonauts have since identified two cracks in the access section to the Zvezda module and sealed them both in March 2021, using methods such as releasing tea leaves to help with their search. This however did not fully eliminate the air leak, although it did reduce it. The crew continues searching and sealing leaks.
