NASA and Roscosmos disagree on cause and severity of ISS air leak

WASHINGTON — NASA and Roscosmos continue to disagree on the cause and severity of an air leak in the Russian segment of the International Space Station, one that NASA worries could lead to a “catastrophic failure” of part of a Russian module.

That disagreement was brought to light during a brief meeting of NASA’s ISS Advisory Committee Nov. 13, which recounted a meeting of that committee with its Roscosmos counterpart in Moscow in September to discuss issues with the station.

The major concern has been a small but persistent leak in a vestibule of the Zvezda service module called PrK that separates a docking port from the rest of the module. That leak has existed for several years, and station crews have dealt with the leak by sealing off PrK from the rest of the station when they do not need access to Progress cargo spacecraft docked to the port.

“Although the teams continue to investigate the causal factors for the crack initiation and growth, the U.S. and Russian technical teams don’t have a common understanding of what the likely root cause is or the severity of the consequences of these leaks,” said Bob Cabana, a former NASA astronaut and associate administrator who now chairs the committee.

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