NASA confirms the ISS is suffering from an air leak in a life support module

On Wednesday, Roscosmos, the Russian equivalent to NASA, announced that a module aboard the International Space Station (ISS), one of the last cooperative efforts between the United States and Russia, is suffering from an air leak.

NASA ISS Program Manager Joe Mantalbano backed up the claims from Roscosmos on the same day as Russia's announcement, as Mantalbano confirmed Russia's Zvezda life support module is suffering from an air leak. Montalbano spoke at a press briefing for the new Crew-8 mission and explained that NASA and Roscosmos were working together to remedy the issue while also stating the leak wasn't affecting crew safety or impacting the Crew-8 mission.

Notably, this air leak was first discovered in August 2020 and was temporarily patched up. However, another leak spot was discovered by Russian cosmonaut Pyotr Dybrov, which indicates how the ISS is nearing its end of life. More specifically, Russia announced in January 2022 that the air leak in Zvezda was going to be fixed, but it appears, judging from both space agencies' announcements, that the problem has re-emerged.

"There is an area at the end of the International Space Station that we've seen a leak. There is a small leak. We saw a leak increase about a week before the recent Progress launch and docking," said Montalbano

It should be noted that the Zvezda life support module provides critical life support ingredients such as oxygen and water to cosmonauts. Furthermore, these leaks demonstrate the aging nature of the ISS, which is expected to be decommissioned in 2030.