NASA announced on Thursday the indefinite suspension of a private mission with four astronauts to the International Space Station, against the backdrop of an ongoing air leakage in the Russian way Zvezda, reports Reuters.
International Photo Space Station: Wikipedia
The commercial mission, which was to transport four astronauts on the ISS, was postponed by NASA as a result of a malfunction in the Russian segment of the station.
The US Space Agency on Thursday announced that it is launching an investigation with Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, after a new pressure loss in the Zvezda module, an ISS key component, which has been working over twenty, writes Mediafax.
“The cosmonauts inspected the affected areas from the inside, isolated several suspicious points and evaluated how quickly the air is lost”, NASA transmitted. According to the agency, the module currently seems to maintain its pressure, but the problem remains under careful supervision.
Although these leaks are small and have not endangered the crew so far, they indicate more and more obvious wear of the Russian components of the station. In recent years, such cracks have been provisionally repaired with adhesive tape, special adhesive and other improvised solutions.
These technical difficulties come at a sensitive time, in which international partners prepare the withdrawal of ISS from service by 2030.
