Space station air leaks trigger delay to private astronaut mission

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(Reuters) -NASA indefinitely delayed a four-person crew’s mission to the International Space Station on Thursday over an escalating probe into air leaks aboard the orbiting laboratory’s Russian segment.

The U.S. space agency said it was working with Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, to “understand a new pressure signature” detected by cosmonauts in the Zvezda Service Module, a more than 2-decade-old core compartment that for months has sprung small leaks.

“Cosmonauts aboard the space station recently performed inspections of the pressurized module’s interior surfaces, sealed some additional areas of interest, and measured the current leak rate,” NASA said in a statement. “Following this effort, the segment now is holding pressure.”

The agency did not immediately respond to questions on what the leak rate was.

Small cracks on the ISS in recent years, particularly on the aging Russian segment, have contributed to the international partnership’s decision to retire the ISS by 2030.

Leaks of air from the cracks have been minor and posed no immediate safety threats to the station’s astronauts but are increasingly worrisome signs of aging that NASA and Roscosmos have been investigating, while having crew members patch the leaks with tape, glue and other solutions.

Scheduled to be aboard the Axiom Mission 4 is Shubhanshu Shukla, an Indian Air Force pilot and one of four astronauts-in-training picked by the Indian Space Research Organization to fly on India’s own debut crewed mission, the Gaganyaan mission planned for 2027.

Shukla, 39, will be the first astronaut to go to the ISS from India’s astronaut corps.

(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Alistair Bell)