An alarming air leak on the International Space Station (ISS) has forced NASA to postpone the launch of the Axiom Mission 4 mission indefinitely to allow for further investigations.
On Thursday, NASA announced that it is working with the Russian space agency Roscosmos to understand a “new pressure signature” in a segment of the Zvezda service module. As a result, NASA and Axiom Space postponed the launch of the company’s fourth private mission to the ISS, which was scheduled for Wednesday, without setting a new date.
The Roscosmos space agency first reported the leak in August 2020. It was discovered in the Russian Zvezda life support module, which Russia launched into low Earth orbit in July 2000. Since then, the rate of air leakage from the Zvezda service module has doubled from one pound per day to just over two pounds per day, according to a report published in 2024.
This week, NASA reported that Russian cosmonauts aboard the ISS “recently inspected the interior surfaces of the sealed module, sealed some additional areas of interest, and measured the current leak rate.” The checks revealed that “the segment is currently holding pressure,” NASA writes.
“The postponement of the Axiom 4 mission provides NASA and Roscosmos with additional time to assess the situation and determine if additional troubleshooting is needed,” NASA said in a statement. NASA is asking Roscosmos to answer specific questions about the Zvezda module.
Last year, NASA raised the risk of a leak to the highest level. At the time, it was reported that NASA and Roscosmos could not agree on the root cause of the leak or how to fix it. This seems to be the case today. While NASA emphasizes that the leak poses no immediate threat to the astronauts currently on board, the recent postponement of the Ax-4 mission is concerning; the delay calls into question the mission itself and its international crew.
Peggy Whitson, a former NASA astronaut who holds the national record for the most days spent in space, is serving as mission commander, along with pilot Shubhanshu Shukla from India, mission specialist Slawosz Uznanski Wisniewski from Poland, and mission specialist Tibor Kapu from Hungary. These three countries are sending astronauts to the ISS for the first time in the station’s more than 25-year history – although the timing is not ideal as the station struggles with aging equipment.
