The International Space Station, with its two-man crew (one American, one Russian) is losing cabin pressure, meaning it may have sprung a leak after recently being hit by a piece of space junk. So far, there are no plans to abandon the ISS, since NASA says the leak is small and is “having no impact on station operations and the crew is in no danger.”
They leak was first noticed on Dec. 29. Astronauts Michael Foale and Alexander Kaleri investigated but found “nothing unusual.” The air pressure followed a still unexplained incident in November, when the astronauts heard a loud noise that sounded like something hitting the ISS, but were never able to identify the sound. NASA thought the space station was probably hit by a piece of space junk, but there was no evidence of this.
Kaleri is used to confronting emergencies in space, since he has experience on the now defunct Russian Mir space station, which deteriorated rapidly during its final years in orbit. The two astronauts are scheduled to spend a total of 200 days together in space.
When it comes to outer space, what?s going on?
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