The Khrunichev Center talked about eliminating air leaks on the ISS

MOSCOW, April 23 It was possible to reduce air losses from the intermediate chamber of the Zvezda Service Module (SM) of the International Space Station, where a leak was previously discovered due to the restriction of the work of cosmonauts in it, the rest of the time the chamber is isolated, General Director of the Khrunichev Center Alexey Varochko said in an interview.
“Measures have been taken in the intermediate chamber of the module to eliminate the detected leak; they have had some success. The loss of air from the chamber can be reduced by periodically isolating it from the rest of the habitable compartment of the module. The crew enters the chamber while working in it,” Varochko said.
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According to him, in general, this malfunction does not have a significant impact on the operation of the ISS, but experts continue to search for the causes of the leak and ways to eliminate it. In addition, the extension of the Zvezda service life until 2028 is now being confirmed taking into account the ongoing activities.

He also said that the work of the SM was extended based on the results of earlier life tests of mock-up copies of the module and analysis of the degree of consumption of the structure’s life in flight.
In 2019, an air leak was recorded on the ISS. As the cosmonauts managed to find out, the location of the leak is in the intermediate chamber of the Russian Zvezda module. A crack several centimeters long was subsequently discovered there. The crack was sealed several times. Later it became known about the presence of a second crack, and then three more places of possible leakage. The astronauts sealed them.
After this, there was no official announcement of the discovery of any new sources of leakage in the ISS housing or their elimination.
At the end of 2023, the press service of Roscosmos reported that Russian cosmonauts on board the ISS are regularly searching for possible places of air leakage from the Russian segment, and they transmit the obtained data for analysis to specialists on Earth.