Space Station Leak Found, Fixed

Rommel writes "NewScientist.com is reporting that the cause of the leak in the International Space Station has been found and fixed. The leak was found in a hose in the Destiny lab module. The hose was used to equalize pressure and eliminate fog between two panes of a window. While the leak was so slow it was unlikely to pose a direct threat to the crew for months to come, some equipment on the ISS is only certified to operate above a certain air pressure. The leak was originally mentioned on Slashdot a few days back."

Comments

Hack comics all over the country rejoice...

[Anonymous Coward]

...as they now get to make "first leak in space" jokes.

Didn't read the article...

[Michael Crutcher]

.. but they used Bart's diamond earing, right?

Re:Didn't read the article...

[MysticGlyph]

This is actually a bit frightening when you think about it. If it took them nearly a month to find this problem imagine if it were a much more serious threat. You would hope that the station would have sensitive enough monitering equipment to detect where problems are occurring. I would probably think twice about spending my powerball winnings on a vacation to the ISS and wait till the Hilton is on the moon, ...no not Paris you dirty minded /.er, although 0-Gravity sex... ...nevermind.

Re:Didn't read the article...

[0123456]

If it was a bigger problem it would probably be easier to find. If you were losing 1 psi an hour from a significant leak, it wouldn't be hard to track down even without any special instruments.

Re:Didn't read the article...

[zelphior]

Not even all that uncomfortable. IIRC, NASA originally planned on only pressurizing space capsules to around 5psi or pure oxygen. This is the same as the partial pressure of oxygen in our atmosphere, so the astronots didn't get high on O2 or anything. That's why the Apollo 1 fire was so bad.

Of course, I think the ISS uses normal 14.7psi of normal earth air, so they'd have to make the air a lot more Oxygen rich if there was a leak. Anyways, just my 2 cents.

Can't remember any sources exactly, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:Didn't read the article...

[HeghmoH]

A small correction on the Apollo 1 fire. The fire hazard from low-pressure pure oxygen is comparable to the fire hazard from a full-pressure atmospheric mix. I believe there are physiological effects to low-pressure oxygen that make it less desirable.

What happened with Apollo 1 is that it was supposed to use low-pressure pure oxygen in flight. However, on the ground, they couldn't do that because the capsule was only meant to take pressure pushing out. If they had used low-pressure oxygen on the ground, it would have been crushed by the outside air. So they just increased the pressure. Oxygen at 3psi is ok, but oxygen at 16psi is an incredible fire hazard. Fire starts, everybody dies.

Damn...

[Loki_1929]

I was looking forward to watching the ISS sputter around the sky like a deflating balloon with a couple astronaughts hanging on for dear life and screaming bloody murder.

Re:Damn...

[sharkey]

I was looking forward to watching the ISS sputter around the sky like a deflating balloon

Not me. I'm just hoping they don't drop a sturgeon on my car.

To paraphrase...

[technomom]

That's one small step for duct tape, one giant leap for mankind.

pressure

[marshall_j]

some equipment on the ISS is only certified to operate above a certain air pressure.

such as the crew maybe?

Re:pressure

[maharg]

No, nothing that critical - just the air monitor - Doh !

Re:pressure

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Actually the crew could work normally until about 1/2 of an atmosphere. If the change is gradual enough, your body build up extra red-blood cells to compensate. Mountain climber in the Himalayas actually park at camp for about six weeks to 'acclimatize' to the reduced atmosphere.

Most people would still need some bottled Oxygen to get up to the top of Everest though, at around 1/3 of an atmosphere. When the pressure gets that low, your body has trouble metabolizing fast enough to maintain temperature.

Re:pressure

[camusflage]

such as the crew maybe?

I was told, second-hand, the story of a NASA contractor who was in a meeting with some NASA engineers. As all geeks should know, hard drives require air pressure to work (floating heads and all that). When the subject of a loss of air pressure on the ISS came up, one of the NASA engineers started talking about how all the experimental data would be lost because the HD's would fail. It wasn't until the contractor said "Uhhh, what about the crew?" that they had even entered folks' minds about being similarly sensitive to a loss of air pressure.

Re:pressure

[tmortn]

No, just the fact the crew is 'rated' to lower pressures for operation. There is a flight reg for a repress to 14.4 psia if the pressure drops to 13.9. The 13.9 is not the crew danger redline. There are several pieces of equipment on board that have the lower pressure operational limit set at 13.9... ie thats as low as they are certified to work with no problem. at 13.95 or so they start to be powered down in case the pressure continues to drop.

The reason is due to thermal buildup. Without gravity you have no coreolis effect, most commonly recognised as the idea that hot air rises. In ziggy hot air does not rise it just gets hot, thus you have to have thermal transfer by contact of some sort, IE air blowing or contact with a heatsink ( water loop ) etc... which is the reason for those huge radiators on the station.

At lower pressure there is less thermal transfer with the air which means greater heat buildup in the electronics could cause a problem or possibly an unrecoverable malfunction.

Genrenally speaking these limits are VERY CAUTIOUS. Much of the equipment has no redundancy and could only be replaced by flying it up from the ground... something very difficult to manage payload scheduling wise even if shuttle were making flights and next to impossible with Soyuz/Progress launches. Thus you don't risk even the possibility of an equipment failure even though much of the equipment would likely operate just fine in near vacume conditions.

To have an idea regarding crew limits consider the fact suit pressure for EVA's is 4.3-5 psia, the new hard suit concept allows for 8.3 ( no pre-breathing ). Either consisting of an environment which could be created in very short order on the station. Of course this requires shifting the concentration of oxygen... close to 100% in the case of the 4.3 I belive, which is dangerous. The 8psia range requires ~32psia which is only a few percentage points above nominal environment on the station.

Thus the pressure drop at that slow of a rate presented a far more immediate danger to the equipment than it did to the crew. The crew was not worried nor were the flight control teams worried about the crew for the simple reason the crew was as yet not in any immidiate danger as it would have taken weeks at the recorded rate of loss to place the crew in danger just had they not undertaken to replace what was lost... they also have plenty of spare oxygen to add and thus it would have taken months for this leak to depleat stores to the point where the crew would have been at risk.

The engineers didn't have the head in the clouds or no concern for the Crew. Crew safety on the station takes precedent over EVERYTHING else.

Re:pressure

[delcielo]

The truth is that above around 26,000 feet there is no amount of acclimatization that will compensate for the diminished oxygen/pressure. That's why they call it the "Dead Zone;" because essentially, you're dying. What happens is your cells start to deteriorate, becoming unable to contain fluids. Your brain starts to swell from the uncontrolled fluid buildup (High Altitude Cerebral Edema). Your lungs begin to do the same (High Altitude Pulmonary Edema). The only fix is oxygen and pressure.

When you get above around 30,000 feet, you start running into funny little things like needing the air/oxygen forced into you with positive pressure, rather than the kind of "on-demand" oxygen setups that are commonly used. If I remember correctly, this is related to pressure; but is not the same issue that you get with pressure higher up, where you're worried about the blood's ability to contain its nitrogen, and thus, about the blood boiling.

Scary stuff.

Re:I would like to think...

[IWorkForMorons]

Yeah, but just think of all the tubing, wall panels, airlocks, windows, and god knows what else that had to be check. And especially since it was a leak in a piece of tubing, I'm surprised they found it so fast.

No better time?

[WebMasterJoe]

"The news couldn't have come at a better time," mission control told the crew.

This is the kind of thing that makes no sense and must just be there to meet the word count requirements. Here are some "better times" that this could have come: Yesterday, two days ago, the day the leak was discovered.

Be honset now...

[Anonymous Coward]

the leak was really Carl Rove, right?

Vaguely apropos

[The Famous Brett Wat]

I'm reminded of a recent "Freefall" (web comic).

Special thanks to McGyver....

[eggoeater]

...for telling the crew how to fix the leak using a roofing nail, some hair spray, and a roll of toilet paper.
The crew said they'd get right on it as soon as those supplies were delivered.

--
Generic Sig: End communication.

Water Test

[Wun Hung Lo]

I guess it wouldn't have been practical to dip the whole station in a tub of water.

Re:Water Test

[*weasel]

Hollywood told me that even Tim Robbins could locate this kind of problem in under a minute with 1 Dr Pepper-in-a-bag.

I'm frankly shocked that the reality isn't how it was presented.

Re:right in the nick of time...i guess.

[CrazyTalk]

better check your math - in 33 days they would be down to 13.0 psi.

Kent Brockman reports on the incident...

[Chuck Bucket]

"The spacecraft has apparently been taken over - "conqured" if you will - by a master race of giant space ants. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality I could be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves." - Kent Brockman

Equalizing?

[Tebriel]

Sounds more like it was trying to equalize pressure between the space station and the vaccuum outside...

The real hero?

[Chuck Bucket]

Let's hear it for the inanimate carbon rod!

CB

Windows?

[skinfitz]

The hose was used to equalize pressure and eliminate fog between two panes of a window.

So.. someone left a window open?

Re:Windows?

[addaon]

I sympathize. I used to have a '68 volvo with a built-in shower.

Cracking the hatch ;)

[Cat_Byte]

From the original story of the launch:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The $1.4 billion U.S. Destiny lab opened for business at the International Space Station Sunday, cracking the hatch on a new era of scientific discovery that one day could lead to human expeditions beyond Earth orbit.

Heh...cracking the hatch....leak...funny.

another link with more details

[mzs]

Here is another good article from The Austrailian with more details. The pressure rose from 13.92 psi to 14.11 psi when the leak was sealed.

Re:right in the nick of time...i guess.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you using an old Pentium for your calcuations, or do you just work for NASA? They'd be down to 13.01 psi thank you very much! :)

Another day-

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

another IIS leaked fixed... ...oh wait...

Other leaks

[HarveyBirdman]

Did they find the money leak that put this thing way over budget?

The lesson here?

[ZipR]

When aboard the space station, use Scotch brand magic transparent tape to affix photos of loved ones to the wall. NEVER EVER EVER use push pins, even Scotch brand magic push pins.

Could be a software issue...

[Chuck Bucket]

• 
  Dave Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
  HAL I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
  Dave What's the problem?
  

CB

Attention astronauts!

[S.I.O.]

*Don't* forget to reapply the patch after the next ISS service pack!

14.0 PSI?

[kscguru]

Normal pressure is 14.7 PSI. They are concerned at 14.0 PSI. Their equipment is not rated to work at 13.9 PSI.

Guesstimating from some info here, Denver, CO is ~12 PSI. A tall mountain in the US is ~10 PSI at the top.

Lousy, cheap NASA equipment! It wouldn't work down here on Earth anyways.

"originally mentioned"

[zontroll]

"The leak was originally mentioned on Slashdot a few days back."


I'm sure NASA is thanking the slashdot community for being the "original" source of the leak information.

Uh..

[Remlik]

Anyone else find the last paragraph of that article a bit scary?

"The leak was made more worrisome because the main oxygen generator, which has been working only sporadically, failed again last week. Russian flight managers are designing a way to fix it this week with spare parts already on the station."

Shouldn't the OXYGEN generators be...oh I dunno...WORKING most of the time? Failed again last week reminds me of the infamous furnace fighting scene from a Christmas Story.

I can just see a Russian cosmonaut banging on it with a wrench cursing...

At least nasa got the units right...

[bucky0]

...Otherwise:
Engineer 1: We're leaking .03psi of air per day.

Engineer 2: (thinking in head: hmmm, there's 1,418,550.14 pascals of air) What's the big deal? we have 129,000 years untill the air's all gone. Tell the astronauts to not worry about it.

Engineer 1: Makes sense to me. Let's get coffee.

Re:Damn... OSR

[outcast36]

This is in reference to Simpsons episode CABF03 The Great Money Caper.

Mir cosmonauts throw the sturgeon from the station in a fit of rage.... Read more here.

insert russian profanities

O2 on Everest is sort of a Catch-22 (OT)

[caveat]

I was reading a good page on low-pressure physiology (had to do witk HALO skydiving) where they did the calculations and figured out you're about equally screwed with or without O2 on Everest - if you don't bring O2, you're naturally sluggish and slow, but if you do, you have a hard time getting enough extra energy to make up for the extra weight you have to carry. There is a "sweet spot", but go very far outside of it and you might as well just breathe the thin air.

Putting some thought behind this

[becker]

With reduced pressure, the thermal capacity of the cooling air is proportionally reduced. Combined with changes in forced air flow and microgravity not creating convectional cooling, you can have long-term overheating issues with equipment that consumes very little power.

This is solved on satellites with conductive cold/hot plates, but that results in much heavier equipment.

Regarding leakage rates, it's very difficult to estimate leak flow rates. The flow might be proportional to pressure squared, or cubed. If it's in an elastic seal, it may completely re-seal when the pressure drops to a specific level.

Humans can function at elevations of about 5psi (see the other posts about mountain climbers), and survive on a little less. Since O2 is less than 20% of the atmosphere, you can theoretically live on 1psi of pure O2. But secondary effects are killers at that low pressure, such as keeping enough moisture in the lung tissue. When near-pure O2 is used, it is usually at about 3psi or nearly the partial pressure of O2 at sea level.

Gratuitous Family Guy Reference

[ari_j]

Dear MacGyver,

Enclosed are a paper clip, a drinking straw, and a rubber band. Please save my dog.

Peter Griffin