- CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
(Reuters) - Astronauts aboard the International Space Station scoured the
facility with ultrasound equipment but failed to find a leak that could
be causing a slow loss of air pressure, NASA said on Tuesday.
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- Ground controllers in Houston and Moscow have determined
the station has been losing pressure since Dec. 22 at what NASA described
as "a rather slow rate."
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- Both NASA and Russian space officials said it posed no
danger to the crew.
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- The two astronauts aboard, British-born NASA astronaut
Michael Foale and Russian Alexander Kaleri, were only told about the leak
on Monday and immediately began an inspection of valves and hatches aboard
the station, but turned up nothing.
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- On Tuesday, NASA had them break out an ultrasound leak
detector for a survey of the interior of the 200-tonspacecraft that also
proved equally fruitless.
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- Next, NASA will have Foale and Kaleri try closing hatches
between the Russian and U.S. segments to see if the leak can be isolated
that way, NASA spokesman Pat Ryan said.
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- The loss of pressure was too gradual for alarms to sound
on the station, said Mike Suffredini, NASA's chief of operations integration
for the space station.
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- "It's a pretty subtle change. The engineers, however,
are taking it very seriously -- both the Russian and U.S. engineers,"
said Suffredini.
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- He said the search for the problem could take weeks,
but the station will have adequate air for six months, given the supplies
already on board and those expected to arrive soon on a Russian cargo ship.
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- Konstantin Kreidenko from the Russian space agency Rosaviakosmos
said experts were checking various theories to establish the source of
the pressure drop but singled out two most probable reasons.
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- "There could be two versions -- either there are
some problems with measuring equipment which show pressure drop or there
is a small leak on board of the International Space Station," Kreidenko
told Russia's First Channel television.
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- NASA reported the current pressure was only about 0.5
pounds per square inch below that at Earth sea level, and the rate of pressure
loss was less than .038 pounds per square inch a day.
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- NASA cautioned that the cause might be something other
than a leak, such as a faulty oxygen generator that has worked only intermittently
during recent weeks.
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- Foale and Kaleri rocketed into orbit from Kazakhstan
in October and are to return there in April on a Russian capsule, the only
means of travel to the station while U.S. shuttles are grounded in the
wake of the Columbia disaster. (Additional reporting by Olena Horodetska
in Moscow)
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