An alarm turned off at the International Space Station early this morning as cosmonauts woke up with the smell of smoke.
Right now, there’s never a boring moment on the ISS, either mysterious air leaks, problematic small cracks, busted toilets i oxygen supply generators, or a new module that stubbornly wants to exit the dock, causing the ISS to unexpectedly turn up to 540 degrees.
The last incident occurred at 4:55 a.m. Moscow time, when there was a smoke detector era activated in the Zvezda service module of the Russian segment, Roscosmos explained in a statement. The Zvezda module, in addition to hosting part of the station’s life support systems, provides rooms for two crew members. BBC reports that the smell of the smoke drifted as far as the US segment.
Roscosmos says the appearance of smoke coincided with the autonomous recharging of the station’s batteries. An air filter was activated to remove “smoke pollution” and cool the space station’s artificial atmosphere. Once the smoke was removed, the ISS-65 crew continued the night in “sleep mode,” the agency said. The main operational control group in the Russian segment said that all systems are operating normally and that the air on board the station “corresponds to the standard indicators”.
Roscosmos did not immediately respond to my request for more information, such as the cause of the smoke, the status of the battery charger, and the next possible steps.
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It seems that life at the station has returned to normal. Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov it continued with its six scheduledtoday of space walk, as cosmonauts continue to integrate the new Nauka module.
In an email, Jonathan McDowell, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said incidents like these are “very serious,” as they could cause smoke inhalation. o, worse, ablown fire (there is a lot of flammable material up there). He characterized the Russian response as follows: “So there was a burning smell, but we showed up the fans and the smell is already gone, although we still don’t know what it was.‘“That response,” McDowell said, “doesn’t fill me with intense confidence.”
McDowell reminded me of a story incident aboard the Mir space station. A fire broke out on February 24, 1997, and it took the crew nearly 15 minutes to put out the “burning flame,” according to NASA. described this, which they did with fire extinguishers. NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger was aboard Mir at the time and described the incident in his memoirs. Off the planet (via Universe Today):
As the fire was launched with intensity of rage, the sparks, resembling a whole box of flares lit simultaneously, extended a foot beyond the farthest edge of the flame. Beyond the sparks, I saw what appeared to be melting wax splashing on the screen opposite the fire. But it wouldn’t melt at most. It was molten metal. The fire was so hot that it melted metal.
Yes, fires aboard space stations are very bad. In that In this case, the fire started at Mir’s solid fuel oxygen generator and the flames were extinguished before they could damage the station or injure the crew. The incident led to new policies and training measures to prevent recurrence.
So while Roscosmos downplays today’s incident, what has happened clearly not a joke. Hopefully more details will emerge in the coming days to confirm them everything is really good and the crew is safe.
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