NASA astronaut to move into leak-free Russian part of space station

Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS

Moscow, 12 January: NASA astronaut Michael Foale has been forced to move temporarily to the Russian part of the International Space Station. The head of the astronauts’ corps at the Energiya space rocket corporation, Pavel Vinogradov, told an ITAR-TASS correspondent today that “on Wednesday [14 January], the crew will isolate the American Destiny module from the other parts of the station for a time in order to check whether it is hermetically sealed”.

According to Vinogradov, by Wednesday Aleksandr Kaleri and Michael Foale “will have to do a great deal of work – they have to move documents, water and food to the Russian segment”. Destiny will be “cut off” for at least 24 hours, but it could be for longer, Vinogradov explained. “According to the regulations, even if a station module is closed down just for a few hours, it still has to be prepared for a lengthy autonomous flight,” he stressed.

An ITAR-TASS correspondent learnt at the NASA mission in Russia today that “the crew has found a crack on the American module in the insulation of a drainage device, which adjusts the pressure in a porthole and stops condensation from forming”. It was learnt at Energiya that today the astronauts had on the whole sealed the crack in the American module. “Nevertheless, we have to ensure this is the only site from which air is leaking,” Vinogradov explained. “The checks carried out by the astronauts showed that all is well in the Russian segment, and there are no leaks there,” he stressed.

Earlier NASA suggested several times that the source of the leak was on the Russian segment. In order to locate the leak, the astronauts had to close off the modules one by one to check their airtightness, an ITAR-TASS correspondent learnt from the mission control centre near Moscow. “A constant temperature was also established on the station, which made it easier for the crew to search for the leak,” our correspondent was told.

Both NASA and Russia’s mission control centre have stressed that there is no danger to the health and lives of the crew. Currently pressure on the station has stabilized at 730 mm of mercury, which is the norm.