The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) confirmed on Thursday local time that the atmosphere from the Russian module of the International Space Station had once again leaked into space. This long-standing problem was originally thought to have been effectively controlled at the beginning of this year.
For more than five years, Roscosmos and NASA engineers have been tracking leak rates in a small Russian-made section of the space station that leads to the docking port. The source has been blamed on tiny structural cracks that are difficult to locate and deal with. In January this year, NASA announced that after multiple inspections and coating of sealing materials, the internal pressure of the module - the transition module called "PrK" by Russia - had reached a "stable state." This news had brought relief to the aerospace community, because atmospheric leaks are never good news for the International Space Station, which operates in a pressurized capsule.
However, a new leak surfaced three weeks ago. After sources disclosed the situation to the media, NASA confirmed on Thursday: On May 1, after Russian astronauts completed unloading the cargo of the "Progress-95" cargo spacecraft, Russia detected a "slow pressure drop" in the PrK module. NASA spokesman Josh Finch said data analysis shows the region is losing about 1 pound of atmospheric mass per day. At present, the Russian side allows the pressure in the transition channel to gradually decrease within a controllable range, and carries out small supplementary pressure according to the situation, while continuously monitoring the leakage rate. NASA said that this situation has not yet had an impact on the overall operation of the space station, and the two parties are coordinating next steps.
Although there is currently no direct threat to the safety of astronauts stationed on the station, and there is no emergency risk to the overall health of the space station, this "relapse of old disease" still raises concerns about the long-term sustainability of the International Space Station. According to people familiar with the matter, NASA has often downplayed the seriousness of such leak risks when facing the public and external partners, but in the internal assessment system, related issues have been given extremely high levels of authority. NASA uses a "5×5 risk matrix" to evaluate the probability of risk occurrence and severity of consequences of space flight activities. The crack leak in the Russian cabin section is currently rated as the highest level "5" in both "possibility of occurrence" and "severity of consequences", and the possibility of its potential "catastrophic failure" has been repeatedly discussed in internal meetings.
With budgets continuing to be tight, Roscosmos has managed risks over the past few years mainly by permanently closing the hatch to the PrK module. Previously, the industry generally believed that this expedient "cabin sealing management" was sufficient to support the safe operation of the space station until 2030, the official decommissioning time point. However, as some modules of the space station have been in orbit for nearly 30 years, the recurrence of the crack problem has forced the outside world to re-examine whether the strategy of "continuously extending life" is still feasible.
To further complicate matters, NASA and the U.S. Congress are currently discussing extending the service life of the International Space Station until at least 2032, and possibly beyond. To promote this plan, NASA must obtain the unanimous support of various international partners, including Russia. At the same time, NASA hopes to continue to rely on the existing space station as an on-orbit scientific research and manned flight platform until the commercial space station is ready, which makes the decision-making environment more delicate.
According to NASA's long-term vision, "commercial space stations" should take over the position of the International Space Station in the future, that is, private companies will build and operate a new generation of space stations. NASA purchases services as "one of many customers" to send astronauts to these commercial platforms. To this end, NASA has proposed to promote a group of private companies to develop space station projects through financial support, technical cooperation and other means. In March this year, NASA announced a new version of the plan at an event called "Ignition". It was envisaged that commercial companies would first dock the initial module to the existing International Space Station to transition to a fully commercial platform. However, the feedback from this plan in the industry was not satisfactory.
For these commercial companies, NASA’s discussion on extending the life of the International Space Station also brings uncertainty. Many companies have emphasized that they have the ability to launch an operational commercial space station by 2030, and if the International Space Station continues to be in service, it may weaken the attractiveness of their business model. Phil McAllister, former director of NASA's commercial manned flight project, publicly stated that NASA's wisest approach is to fully support the development of commercial space stations and work closely with companies to ensure that it has the ability to take over the International Space Station by 2030. In his view, the leakage of the Russian cabin once again exposed the potential safety risks of the aging space station, "further confirming the correctness of the established policy of decommissioning the International Space Station in 2030 and replacing it with a more modern, cost-effective and safer commercial platform."
Currently, the International Space Station remains one of the world's most important on-orbit scientific experiments and technology verification platforms, and is also a symbol of multinational manned space cooperation. However, as hardware ages, maintenance costs rise, and safety risks accumulate, striking a balance between ensuring flight safety and maintaining on-orbit capabilities is becoming a key issue that NASA and its international partners cannot avoid. In the context of another leak of the Russian module, the debate over "when and how to end the International Space Station" and "when to fully take over" the new generation of commercial space stations is expected to become more intense in the next few years.