MOSCOW. Jan 19 (Interfax-AVN) - A computer in the U.S. segment of the International Space Station (ISS) again sent a false signal about ammonia leaking in the station but this time astronauts were not evacuated, Interfax-AVN was told in the Russian space industry.
"There was another computer failure in the U.S. Harmony module yesterday which caused a false alarm of ammonia leaking from the cooling system," the source said.
The same happened last Wednesday leading to the evacuation of the crew from the U.S. segment to the Russia and the closure of hatches.
"On Saturday mission control in Houston already knew that such an alarm does not mean that there is a leak of ammonia, therefore the crew was not evacuated from the American segment," the source said.
It is the second time in a week when an alarm is sounded indicating the leak of ammonia from the cooling system in the U.S. segment of ISS.
Earlier reports said a computer problem was believed to have caused Wednesday's incident in the U.S. segment. Russian Mission Control Center head Maxim Matyushin said on Thursday: "The astronauts spent the night in the American segment, although not in their usual places because the ventilation system and the lights have not yet been restored in full in the American segment."
Commenting on the cause of the incident, Matyushin said "specialists tend to believe that it was a malfunction of the computer that controls the cooling system."
ISS has a crew of six: NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts, European Space Agency's Samantha Cristoforetti and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Samokutayev, Elena Serova and Anton Shkaplerov.