The six astronauts aboard the International Space Station are working to fix a leak in the wall of the International Space Station.
The problem was first detected by mission control Wednesday night as a reduction of pressure in the station, but it was small enough that the crew was allowed to sleep all night, NASA reported.
On Thursday morning, an investigation showed the leak appeared to be on the Russian side of the space station.
According to tweets from the space news website NASASpaceFlight.com, a hole was found and initially taped over as a temporary fix. As of 8 a.m., the crew was working to patch it more permanently.
Russian ground controllers say they are now into a deep dive evaluation of the hole. Sergey Prokopyev is still trying to hunt down a repair kit. They have taped the hole as a band aid. Plan is to clean up the area and add more permanent patches.
—@NASASpaceflight
They are now installing patches over the hole. <br><br>You can follow this repair live (audio at least):<a href=”https://t.co/C3cBydAC47″>https://t.co/C3cBydAC47</a> <a href=”https://t.co/VLUnFCx5w1″>pic.twitter.com/VLUnFCx5w1</a>
—@NASASpaceflight
The European Space Agency reported crew members are in no danger, as there are weeks of air left in the ISS reserves.
The crew includes NASA astronauts:
- Drew Feustel, the current commander, and Ricky Arnold and Serena Auñón-Chancellor, all from the U.S.
- Alexander Gerst, of the European Space Agency.
- Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos, both from Russia.