<
https://www.sciencealert.com/coolant-leak-on-iss-raises-concerns-over-russian-space-program>
'The Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS) sprung its third
coolant leak in under a year Monday, raising new questions about the
reliability of the country's space program even as officials said crew members
were not in danger.
Flakes of frozen coolant spraying into space were seen in an official live feed
of the orbital lab provided by NASA around 1:30 pm Eastern Time (1730 GMT), and
confirmed in radio chatter between US mission control and astronauts.
"The Nauka module of the Russian segment of the ISS has suffered a coolant leak
from the external (backup) radiator circuit, which was delivered to the station
in 2012," Russian space agency Roscosmos said on Telegram, adding temperatures
remained normal in the affected unit.
"Nothing is threatening the crew and the station," added the statement.
Nauka, which means "science" in Russian and is also known as the Multipurpose
Laboratory Module-Upgrade (MLM), launched in 2021.
US mission control in Houston could be heard asking astronauts on the American
side to investigate.
"Hi, we're seeing flakes outside, we need a crew to go to the cupola, we think
windows five or six, and confirm any visual flakes," an official said to the
astronauts.
"There's a leak coming from the radiator on MLM," NASA astronaut Jasmin
Moghbeli replied a little later.
NASA later confirmed the events in a statement Monday, saying that "the crew
aboard (the) station was never in any danger," and that the leak was coming
from Nauka's backup radiator.
"The primary radiator on Nauka is working normally, providing full cooling to
the module with no impacts to the crew or to space station operations," NASA
said, adding that the crew "was asked to close the shutters on US segment
windows as a precaution against contamination."'
Via Rixty Dixet.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
