Russia’s Mission Control Center has issued a recommendation to cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Sergei Prokopyev to stop the increase of pressure at the International Space Station after the plugging of a breach at the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft with a sealant, a spokesman for the mission said in the course of a teleconference with the cosmonauts.

"We recommend finishing the supercharge," an expert at the mission told them. Supercharge of one of the methods of building up pressure inside the station’s structural elements.

Prokopyev said several minutes later that he had finished it and the pressure inside the station was 750 millimeters of mercury. He also added that the sealant, with which they had filled the breach, had already hardened.

Earlier reports said the Mission Control Center had instructed Artemyev and Prokopyev, who had been sealing the breach, to suspend the works until Friday morning. The contents of communications between experts at the center and the expedition members aboard the ISS suggested the cosmonauts would test the sealing patch-up over the breach for durability on Friday and the final decision on the situation would be taken before the end of the day.

A well-informed source in the Russian aerospace industry told TASS earlier the breach might have appeared because of an external impact, like collision with a meteorite or space rubbish or owing to structural defects in the inner lining of the aircraft.

Expert gave the assurances, however, there were absolutely no risks for the lives of the crew aboard the station.

Quelle: TASS

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Pressure on orbital outpost ‘stable, no new leaks detected,’ says Roscosmos

The leak was soon localized and poses no danger to the crew

The pressure on the International Space Station (ISS), after Russian cosmonauts covered a micro-fracture with sealant on the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft, remains stable and no new leaks have been spotted, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos Executive Director for Manned Programs Sergei Krikalyov told TASS on Friday.

"The first layer [of the sealant] is already proving to be completely air tight. At night, tests were held and the pressure was monitored for a lengthy period of time. Right now, the pressure is stable and no further leaks have been detected," the executive stated.

No swelling on the sealant layer used to plug the hole on the Soyuz spacecraft has been identified, he said.

"When the epoxy-based sealer was used [to plug the hole], it was made thicker for more reliability in order to make sure that nothing would swell up there. This is a sort of a sealant with a safety margin," Krikalyov said.

A drop in pressure due to an air leak was detected on the orbital outpost overnight to August 30. Later, the cause was discovered to be a fracture 3-4cm in diameter in the orbital compartment of the manned Soyuz MS-09 space vehicle docked to the space station.

Russia has set up a commission consisting of specialists from Roscosmos, the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation and the Central Research Institute of Machine-Building (TsNIImash, Roscosmos’s major research institute) to investigate the incident.

As a source in the Russian space industry told TASS, the fracture in the Soyuz vehicle could have been caused either by external factors (a micro-meteorite or space debris hitting the ship) or by defects in the spacecraft’s internal casing.

The leak was soon localized and poses no danger to the crew. The Russian cosmonauts had plugged the hole with the sealant and restored pressure aboard the space station by Thursday evening, after which the Mission Control Center outside Moscow gave instructions to suspend works until morning. On Friday, the sealant will be checked for its reliability and a final decision on the situation will be made by the evening of August 31.

Quelle: TASS