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After Years of Air Leaks, Russia Is Reportedly Closing Off Part of the ISS for Good

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After Years of Air Leaks, Russia Is Reportedly Closing Off Part of the ISS for Good

After years of failed attempts to track down and repair a persistent air leak aboard the International Space Station, Russia’s space agency is reportedly preparing to shut down the affected section of the orbital outpost.

The leak was first detected in 2019 in the PrK transfer tunnel that connects a docking port to the Russian Zvezda module. Since then, NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, have made several attempts to patch it up, but to no avail. Roscosmos appears to have decided to permanently close the hatch between the Zvezda module and the PrK tunnel in an attempt to isolate the leak from the rest of the space station, according to Anatoly Zak, the U.S.-based journalist behind RussianSpaceWeb.

Next month, Russia is launching the Progress MS-36 cargo spacecraft to deliver supplies to the ISS. According to Zak’s report, it will be the first resupply mission affected; rather than unloading through Zvezda, Progress MS-36 will be unloaded through the hatches of Poisk, another Russian module.

Gizmodo reached out to NASA to confirm the permanent closure of the transfer chamber to the Zvezda module but did not hear back before publication. Neither NASA nor Roscosmos has released a statement regarding the decision.

Russian space industry analyst Georgy Trishkin, citing his own sources, claims that NASA pressured the Russian space agency into permanently sealing off the air leak by closing the PrK tunnel, Russia’s The Insider reported.

The two space agencies have reportedly been in disagreement over the root cause of the leak, as well as its severity.


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