NASA says it’s perfectly fine for the space station to be full of cracks and leaks

Inspector gadget

Despite warnings from its own regulator that leaks in the aging International Space Station pose a “major safety risk,” NASA doesn’t seem too concerned.

Than that Washington Post Both an agency spokesman and its deputy administrator reportedly downplayed the severity of the cracks and leaks in the Russian portion of the ISS, which were of paramount importance to a new inspector general report.

In that report, the watchdog highlighted that there were significant cracks and air leaks in a section of the tunnel leading to the Russian portion of the space station. Worse, they seem to have gotten stronger and are leaking more air than ever before.

When speaking with WaPo However, NASA Deputy Administrator James Free stated in the report that the problem had been passed on to Russian colleagues – without clarifying whether anything was done about it.

“We have expressed the seriousness of the leaks numerous times,” Free told the newspaper, “including when I was in Russia earlier this year.”

The deputy administrator added that NASA asked Roscosmos to “keep the opening time of this hatch to a minimum” and that the Russian space agency complied.

“We came to a compromise that they would close it in the evening,” Free continued.

This unconvincing assurance obviously doesn’t do much for the agency. In July, NASA quietly awarded a $266,000 contract to SpaceX to develop evacuation ideas for American astronauts hitching a ride to the ISS on Russian Soyuz rockets.

As the agency announced WaPothat emergency planning was triggered “due to the ongoing leak detection work”.

Look inside

It’s currently unclear what exactly caused the leaks on the Russian side of the ISS – but apparently they will be patched over time.

“Roscosmos has applied sealant to many of these areas of interest, which has further reduced the leak rate,” said NASA spokeswoman Kathryn Hambleton WaPo.

The Russian space agency has identified a whopping 50 “problem areas” and is “continuing to assess the problem areas and apply sealant and patches as necessary,” Hambleton added. She also pointed out that the problematic areas were not “cracks” and could simply be “benign imperfections typically seen on a surface, such as a small scratch.”

With the ISS spending 10 years longer in space than it ever should have, its continued survival until NASA reaches its hard limit in 2031, the agency’s inspector general said, will require updated risk assessments and “continued support” from its international partners – and “Russia”. in particular.”

More on ISS problems: The company building NASA’s next space station says things are actually going well, even though it’s firing 100 employees and can’t pay its bills