Space station leak concerns will delay visit by astronauts from India, Poland and Hungary
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
Space station leak concerns will delay visit by astronauts from India, Poland and Hungary
The flight was supposed to take place this week, but was delayed. The space station has been plagued by leaks for more than five years. NASA wants to make sure the space station is safe before sending more people there. The flight was scheduled to take off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It is the fourth time the flight has been called off because of the leak problem. It was scheduled for this week but has been delayed until at least Friday. The mission is scheduled to last 14 days. It will be the first time the station has had more than one flight in a row.
NASA said Thursday that it wants to monitor the cabin pressure on the Russian side of the orbiting lab before accepting visitors. Officials stressed that the seven astronauts currently at the space station are safe and that other operations up there aren’t affected.
SpaceX was supposed to launch four private astronauts this week on a 14-day space station mission, but bad weather and SpaceX rocket trouble delayed the flight. Then the station leak issue cropped up.
The Russian Space Agency has been dealing with cracks and air leaks in its station compartments for more than five years — “a top safety risk,” according to NASA’s Office of Inspector General. Recent repairs resulted in what NASA calls “a new pressure signature.” Additional details were not immediately available.
The three Russians aboard the space station recently inspected the inside walls of the aging Zvezda service module, which launched in 2000, as well as a connecting tunnel. They sealed some areas and measured the current leak rate.
“Following this effort, the segment now is holding pressure,” NASA said in an online update.
The private mission’s delay provides extra time for NASA and the Russian Space Agency “to evaluate the situation” and determine whether more repairs are needed.
The chartered flight was arranged by the Houston company Axiom Space, and was to be Axiom’s fourth trip to the space station with paying customers since 2022.
“This is the right thing to do,” Axiom Space’s executive chairman Kam Ghaffarian said in a written statement. “We will continue to work with all of our partners to finalize a new launch date.”
The four astronauts — led by retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, now an Axiom Space employee — will remain in quarantine in Florida.
NASA wants to keep the space station operating until 2030 before dropping it out of orbit. The goal is to replace it with a number of privately owned stations; Axiom Space is among the companies looking to fill the gap.
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