NASA Space Technology
From holes in robotic arm to cracks in the window, astronauts have been complaining about the state of the International Space Station (ISS) for years.
A NASA report this week admitted that there are 50 ‘areas of concern’ and four cracks that could lead to an emergency evacuation from the ISS due to it leaking oxygen.
NASA warned that the issues stemmed from one leak which reached its fastest growth rate yet in April of this year.
If the crew makes the daring escape it would be the first time in the orbiting lab’s 24-year history of housing astronauts.
The first reported issues in 2013 when a piece of space debris caused a small hole in one of the orbiting outpost’s solar panels.
And three years later, an astronaut spotted a tiny, circular fracture in a window looking out into the blackness of space.
Astronauts have said that NASA has done very little to address the rise in leaks on board the ISS, but in 2021 NASA denied claims that there were ‘bad’ cracks on the module, saying there were no issues ‘impacting crew or normal operations.’
Dozens of other leaks and cracks have since appeared, which have only been fixed using special tape, gauze and sealant.
The current issue is located in the Russian Zvezda Service Module Transfer Tunnel that was installed in 2000 and is used to house life support equipment and to access a Russian cargo dock.
In 2019, the module had begun to leak a small amount of air through an unidentified crack. However, despite efforts to seal the module, the amount of air escaping the station has only increased over the last five years.
The Canadarm2 robot arm was struck by space debris in May 2021, creating a hole that fortunately didn’t impact the functionality of the robotic arm
This is not the first time the ISS has sprung a leak. In 2018 astronauts rushed to fix a hole (pictured) which had appeared in the outer wall of the Soyuz capsule on the orbiting laboratory.
Russia previously predicted that the space station would encounter a ‘cascade of failures’ from 2025 onward because of its age.
The ISS became fully operational in May 2009, when it hosted a crew of six, but the orbiting laboratory was not continuously manned until November 2, 2000.
For more than a decade, the ship has been bombarded by small meteors and space debris that are chipping away at its exterior.
The exact cause of the growing air leak is unknown, but NASA and Roscosmos are focusing on internal and external welds as a possible source.
Many of the internal issues have stemmed from the Russian side of the ISS.
In December 2022, unexpected damage occurred on the Soyuz spacecraft attached to the ISS, causing coolant to leak and rendered the vehicle unsafe for the return flight.
The year before, Bill Shepherd, who was a NASA astronaut from October 2000 to March 2001, said that the cracks found on the ISS were a ‘fairly serious issue’ and claimed there could be others that hadn’t been found.
The crack was spotted in the Russian Zarya module.
Shepherd said the cracks needed to be resolved before Congress cleared the ISS for operational use beyond 2024.
ISS contractor Vladimir Solovyov said at the time that a number of ‘superficial fissures’ had been found on Zarya.
This module is also known as the ‘Functional Cargo Block’ and Solovyov said the fissures had been uncovered in a ‘number of places.’
‘This is bad and suggests that the fissures will begin to spread over time,’ Solovyov told Russian state-owned news agency RIA.
He added that a significant portion of the equipment on the ISS is ageing.
ESAastronaut Tim Peake took this photo from inside Cupola in 2016, showing a 7 mm-diameter circular chip gouged out by the impact from a tiny piece of space debris
NASA had vehemently denied the claims that there were ‘bad’ cracks on the module, saying there were no issues ‘impacting crew or normal operations.’
In 2016, a piece of paint floating in space collided with a window on the ISS, creating a seven-millimeter chip in the stations Cupola.
‘I am often asked if the International Space Station is hit by space debris. Yes – this is the chip in one of our Cupola windows, glad it is quadruple glazed,’ said European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Tim Peak, who was on the ISS.
To cater to such possibilities, the station is provided with extensive shielding around all vital crew and technical areas, so that minor strikes, like this one, pose no threat.
Then in 2018, a hole caused an oxygen leak on the ISS which the Russian space agency Roskosmos claimed was caused deliberately.
They initially thought the damage was caused by a micrometeorite piercing the spacecraft, but an anonymous source claimed the hole was mistakenly drilled by a worker who sealed it instead of reporting the error.
The space agencies have been tracking the current leak for years. Pictured is now former NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy in 2020 attempting to find the source of the leak. Astronauts isolated in the Russian segment of the ship
The small hole was located and quickly sealed up, but the Russian media speculated that a US astronaut might have sabotaged the spacecraft to delay a possible early return to Earth due to the alleged sickness of one member of the ISS crew.
However, an investigation into the incident didn’t reveal what had caused the hole.
The Canadarm2 robot arm, which keeps the space station properly maintained on the ISS, was struck by space debris in May 2021.
Fortunately, the hole didn’t cause any major malfunctions.
The Canada Space Agency, which owns the robotic arm, said at the time: ‘Results of the ongoing analysis indicate that the arm’s performance remains unaffected. The damage is limited to a small section of the arm boom and thermal blanket.’
In 2023, one of the Nauka Multipurpose Laboratory Module radiators experienced a coolant leak and the crew was asked to shutter the US segment windows to prevent contamination to the remainder of the ISS.
The leak forced all spacewalks to be postponed while the backup radiator was isolated and inspected.
The latest issue was first reported last month, despite officials having been aware of the crack on Zveda since 2019 and while the potential cracks have been covered with ‘a combination of sealant and patches,’ the exact source of the leak is unknown.
Astronauts have been alerted to stay in the US section when the module is open so they can be close to their spacecraft in case of an emergency evacuation, and they have been warned to only open the hatch when absolutely necessary.
And that’s not the only cause for concern, as the space agency has warned that the ISS is at risk of being pelted with micro-meteors and space debris.
An object up to one centimeter in size could disable an instrument or a critical flight system on a satellite.
Anything above one cm could penetrate the shields of the station’s crew modules, and anything larger than 10 centimeters could shatter a satellite or spacecraft into pieces.
There are estimated to be more than 29,000 items of space junk larger than 10 centimeters currently trapped in Earth’s orbit.
This includes old engine parts, dead satellites and other floating junk generated by space missions or from collisions in space.
EXPLAINED: THE $100 BILLION INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION SITS 250 MILES ABOVE THE EARTH
The International Space Station (ISS) is a $100 billion (£80 billion) science and engineering laboratory that orbits 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.
It has been permanently staffed by rotating crews of astronauts and cosmonauts since November 2000.
Crews have come mainly from the US and Russia, but the Japanese space agency JAXA and European space agency ESA have also sent astronauts.
The International Space Station has been continuously occupied for more than 20 years and has been expended with multiple new modules added and upgrades to systems
Research conducted aboard the ISS often requires one or more of the unusual conditions present in low Earth orbit, such as low-gravity or oxygen.
ISS studies have investigated human research, space medicine, life sciences, physical sciences, astronomy and meteorology.
The US space agency, NASA, spends about $3 billion (£2.4 billion) a year on the space station program, with the remaining funding coming from international partners, including Europe, Russia and Japan.
So far 244 individuals from 19 countries have visited the station, and among them eight private citizens who spent up to $50 million for their visit.
There is an ongoing debate about the future of the station beyond 2025, when it is thought some of the original structure will reach ‘end of life’.
Russia, a major partner in the station, plans to launch its own orbital platform around then, with Axiom Space, a private firm, planning to send its own modules for purely commercial use to the station at the same time.
NASA, ESA, JAXA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) are working together to build a space station in orbit around the moon, and Russia and China are working on a similar project, that would also include a base on the surface.
