A Russian sub-module of the International Space Station (ISS) has experienced a new leak of gas and coolant, NASA has confirmed.

The unit is sealed off from the rest of the space station and there is no danger to the seven astronauts on the station.

The derelict space station, which is in low Earth orbit at an altitude of 254 milesis set to be decommissioned by 2030 after several gas and coolant leaks from the ISS in recent years.

The leak was revealed by ISS program manager Joel Montalbano during a live press briefing this week at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

“I would say this area covers about three feet in length,” Montalbano said.

“We’ve been watching it for a while as this area it has had some leaks in the past and to deal with them we have repaired some cracks in this part of the unit,” he stressed.

“We are working with our Russian colleagues on the next step.”

He added that it does not affect crew operations or safety, but is “something everyone should be aware of.”

The various modules of the space station are managed by five space agencies – NASA (USA), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), CSA (Canada).

Space station

Because the ISS is divided into airtight units, the Russian-owned one with the leak, called Zvezda, can be sealed.

“When we close that hatch from the rest of the space station, the rest of the Russian units, the rest of the US, European, Japanese everything is stable,” Montalbano said.

In its own statement, the Russian space agency Roscosmos confirmed the leak and said none of the crew were in danger.

“Actually, experts detected an air leak in the ISS”, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said in a statement. “There is no threat to crew members or the station itself.”

The Zvezda unit is a key part of the Russian half of the station as it supplies the section with oxygen and drinking water. It also houses CO2 scrubbers that remove the gas from the crew while also having a sleeping, bathroom and dining area for the Russian cosmonauts.

This is not the first time a leak has surfaced from the Zvezda module, which was sent into space to connect to other components of the ISS in July 2000.

Video from a previous leak of the Russian section

NASA officials first detected a gas leak coming from the space station in September 2019 before making it public the following year.

Only later was it revealed that the leak was coming from the Zvezda unit and attempts were made to repair it but it is not clear if they were successful. It is possible that this new leak is from the same hole.

It follows a leak of vital coolant from the ISS last year, which was described as serious but not life-threatening to astronauts on the station.

In 2018, another hole that caused a pressure leak in the ISS was repaired by the space station crew.

Former Roscosmos director general Dmitry Rogozin said the hole was not caused by a manufacturing defect and hinted that it was likely human-made damage.

In response, NASA said in a statement that this conclusion “does not necessarily mean that the hole was created intentionally or with malicious intent.”

The exact cause of the problem is believed to be a poor repair job by an engineer that blew a hole in the side of the spacecraft. However, some have made allegations of sabotage and deliberate sabotage.