MOSCOW. Feb 24 (Interfax) - The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) has found the presumed location of the second source of an air leak on the ISS, according to the conversation between the cosmonauts and the Mission Control Center streamed by NASA.
"We'd like to build an insulation barrier to contain the leak, if the crack is behind the pipe, it will simply be drawn to the crack," a representative of the Mission Control Center said.
Ground-based specialists instructed cosmonaut Sergei Ryzhikov on how to use the microscope that was brought to the ISS to help find the leak.
The air leak on the ISS was first reported on August 20, 2020. The Roscosmos press service said then that the ISS crew had isolated itself in the Russian Zvezda module for the period of checking the air pressure in the U.S. segment. Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin told Interfax earlier that the air leak on the ISS was insignificant and nearly untraceable by hardware. In turn, flight director of the Russian ISS segment Vladimir Solovyov said that the air leak rate was thousands of times lower than critical.
Cosmonauts used teabags last year to detect the probable location of the air leak and contained the leak using improvised materials. However, the leak has yet to be fully stopped.
The Progress MS-16 resupply ship delivered a powerful microscope to the ISS on February 17. The microscope will be used to look for other sources of the air leak. The resupply ship also delivered crack sealing materials.