STAR CITY. Feb 12 (Interfax) - The International Space Station (ISS) Expedition 56/57 crew is ready for another space flight, they told reporters.
"I'm thinking of starting training for subsequent crews after rehabilitation and continuing with my space work as a cosmonaut," the Russian member of the crew, Sergei Prokopyev, said.
The great space powers should continue joint exploration of the cosmos, he said.
"I think that splitting up is absolutely not an option for us, because this project is not only expensive, but high-tech. We need to act together, much more effectively, and work together better," Prokopyev, who was commander of the Soyuz MS-09, which flew to and from the ISS, said.
Mission 57 commander and German astronaut Alexander Gerst (European Space Agency), also expressed a wish to fly into space again, once all work related to the completed flight is done.
The third member, NASA astronaut Serena Aunon-Chancellor, said the flight was a success despite the difficulties.
On August 30, 2018, an air leak was detected in the ISS. The crew checked every compartment of the Soyuz and found the hole. Air was leaking from the habitation module, not the landing capsule, which meant a safe return to the Earth would still be possible.
Russian cosmonauts applied a sealant to the hole and covered it with patches. An ultrasound scan showed that the leak was stopped. Now specialists are trying to establish the hole's origin.
Russian cosmonauts, who went on a spacewalk on December 11, took samples of the sealant and the micrometeorite shield. The samples were brought to the Earth to be studied.
Senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Biomedical Problems Svetlana Poddubko told Interfax that microorganisms inhabiting the ISS would have been unable to make a hole in the skin of the Soyuz.
It has been suggested that the hole was due to a production defect, intentional damage done to the craft's hull by a U.S. astronaut in connection with health problems, or a collision with a micrometeorite or piece of space debris.