Russia to send equipment for investigating air leak to ISS in February — Roscosmos

MOSCOW, December 30. /TASS/. Equipment for a detailed study of a pressure leak aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will be delivered by Russia's Progress space freighter in February 2021, Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said on Tuesday. "In February, we will send a Progress space freighter to deliver vital supplies, first of all equipment for a more detailed study into causes of the air leak aboard the station," the space official said in an interview with the Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station on Tuesday. The ISS crew reported to Russia’s Flight Control Center on the morning of October 15 that the cosmonauts had found a possible air leak spot in the inter-section compartment of the Zvezda module. Cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin later specified that the air leak spot looked like a curvilinear scratch 2-3 cm long. Cosmonaut Sergei Ryzhikov later said that the fracture was about 4.5 cm in its size. In November, the ISS Russian crewmembers made images of the possible air leakage spot from the outside of the space station during their spacewalk. The cosmonauts did not notice any damage outside the station in the area of the fracture. On December 18, during a communication session with the ISS, a specialist from the Mission Control Center reported a possible new air leak in the transition chamber in the Zvezda module, adding that there was no information about the exact location of the leak. Read more