NEWS: Efforts continue to isolate stubborn air leak

Russia, U.S. Hunt Air Leak in Space Station
Fri Jan 9, 6:37 PM ET Reuters
By Broward Liston

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA (news - web sites) and Russian
officials said on Friday they will isolate the astronauts on board the
International Space Station (news - web sites) in one module for up to five
days to hunt down a slow leak spewing air into the void.

By closing the hatches that connect the four main modules -- two Russian and
two American -- and monitoring them independently, the space agencies for
both nations hope to narrow their search for the presumed leak.

While Russia insists the leak has stabilized, NASA said it continued to cost
the station 1-1/2 to 3 lbs of air a day.

"Americans know their systems well and Russian academics know their systems
and therefore they need to be separated to see where the pressure loss is
occurring, in which section of the station," Vyacheslav Mikhailichenko,
spokesman for Russian space agency Rosaviakosmos, told Reuters.

The astronauts, Michael Foale and Alexander Kaleri, would be confined on
Wednesday to the Russian Zvezda (news - web sites) module, where their
Russian Soyuz escape capsule is docked.

That would halt all their science work and separate them from the most
sophisticated communications equipment on the station, located in the U.S.
Destiny laboratory module.

"Since that's where the (carbon dioxide) scrubbing systems are, and the
potty and the galley, the crew will have to reside in there. They'll
probably have to stay in this isolated state for four or five days," said
space station operations integration manager Mike Seffredini at NASA.

The module is designed for two, so comfort is no issue.

But they will be suspending operations on the very day President Bush
(news - web sites) is expected to announce the future of the space station
in a major policy address on space flight.

The station has numerous critics who argue it has demonstrated no real
scientific merit since orbital assembly began in 1998, is too costly, at $95
billion, and is in constant need of repair.

Defenders compare it to national laboratories, which rarely announce
headline-grabbing discoveries, but daily contribute to the ongoing work of
science.

What is beyond doubt is that the project is four years behind schedule, in
part because the U.S. shuttle fleet has been grounded since February 2003,
after the Columbia broke apart, killing seven astronauts, but also because
of Russia's money woes.

Russia has assumed full responsibility for launching manned and cargo ships
to keep the station in orbit, but modules belonging to NASA's other
international partners remain in storage at the Kennedy Space Center (news -
web sites) in Florida.

Both NASA and Rosaviakosmos say the crew are in no danger.

But the Russians and their U.S. partners disagree on the amount of air being
lost.

Mikhailichenko said there had been a decline in pressure between Dec. 31 and
Jan. 5 and it had now stabilized. NASA says the fall started on Dec. 22 and
is continuing but at about half the rate it was.

"Today we can establish the fact that the pressure is within a normal
range," Mikhailichenko said, adding small weekly fluctuations were normal
and depended on oxygen and humidity levels and other factors.

(Additional reporting by Sonia Oxley in Moscow)