Although not enough, according to Russia’s space agency, to jeopardize the crew there, air leaks from its portion of the International Space Station are still occurring, and experts are keeping an eye on the situation.

The revelation was released following a briefing by NASA’s ISS program manager Joel Montalbano to reporters about the minor but developing leak in Russia’s Zvezda life support module during the Crew-8 mission briefing.

“There is an area at the end of the International Space Station that we’ve seen a leak,” he said, as quoted by Science Alert. “There is a small leak.”

“We saw a leak increase about a week before the recent Progress launch and docking,” he added, referring to a recent mission to the station.

That Pours When It Leaks

The news of a leak on the International Space Station is by no means new. NASA discovered a decrease in air pressure in 2020, which set off a months-long search for the leak’s origin. The cause was identified as Russia’s Zvezda service module, which is also utilized for evacuations; crew members fixed it.

The following year, a Russian astronaut noticed what appeared to be an entirely new leak. Russian news outlet TASS reported the existence of a “final air leak” in 2022, but officials assured them it would be sealed off.

According to the most recent information, the Zvezda module is still inexplicably losing air. In addition, the crew members of the station are dealing with malfunctioning Russian rockets and radiator leaks.

Russia has long lamented the sad state of the ancient orbital station, calling it “irreparable.”

Also, the country has promised to construct its own space station and leave the International Space Station “after 2024”.

Decades of cooperative scientific research have come to a sad end, but NASA intends to continue at least until 2030, so it will eventually need to identify the source of the most recent leak.