- Roscosmos said on Wednesday that it detected an air leak on board the ISS that poses no threat to the crew.
- Hours earlier, NASA said it had detected such a leak in Russia’s Zvezda life support module.
- It’s a problem that Roscosmos said it fixed in early 2021 but appears to have resurfaced again.
Russia’s space agency said on Wednesday that its section of the International Space Station is again suffering an air leak issue, but said the problem currently poses no threat to its crew.
“Indeed, specialists are detecting an air leak on board the ISS,” the press service of Roscosmos said on Wednesday, per a translation by Interfax.
“There is no threat to crewmembers or the station itself,” Roscosmos added.
Space officials said Russian crew are “regularly” working to identify and fix potential leaks on the ISS, per state media agency TASS.
The announcement came shortly after National Aeronautics Space Agency ISS Program Manager Joel Montalbano on the same day reported an air leak in Russia’s Zvezda life support module during a press briefing for the new Crew-8 mission.
According to Montalbano, the leak is small but growing.
"There is an area at the end of the International Space Station that we've seen a leak. There is a small leak. We saw a leak increase about a week before the recent Progress launch and docking," he said.
Montalbano added that NASA was working with Roscosmos on the issue and that the leak is neither affecting crew safety nor disrupting the Crew-8 mission, which aims to send four astronauts to the ISS.
NASA and Roscosmos found an air leak in Russia's side of the ISS in August 2020. It was in the Zvezda module, which provides critical life support like oxygen and water.
This leak source was identified in October 2020 and temporarily patched up, but another possible leak spot was found in November 2021 by Russian cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov.
Roscosmos said in January 2022 that the "last air leak" location in the Zvezda had been discovered and would be fixed.
However, the announcement on Wednesday indicates that the problem has resurfaced.
Russia is set to pull out of the ISS after 2024, Moscow said in July 2022, at a time when the US announced sanctions targeting Russian leadership because of the war in Ukraine.
The station has been one of the last remaining points of cooperation between Roscosmos and NASA, which hopes to continue operating the aging station until 2030.
Meanwhile, Roscosmos said it plans to build its own space station, following the example of China's independent Tiangong station.
As Moscow continues to split from the West, Russian space officials have questioned the reliability of the old equipment on board the ISS.