“The station is not young,” said Michael Barratt, a NASA astronaut who returned from the space station last month. “It’s been there for quite a while, and you expect some wear and tear, and we’re seeing it.”

“The Russians believe that continued operations are safe, but they cannot prove to our satisfaction that they are safe,” said Cabana, who served as a senior NASA official until his retirement in 2023. “And the United States considers it unsafe.” , but we cannot prove that this is the case to Russian satisfaction.

“So while the Russian team continues to research and plug leaks, they do not believe that a catastrophic disintegration of PrK is realistic,” Cabana said. “And NASA has expressed concerns about the structural integrity of the PrK and the possibility of catastrophic failure.”

Permanently closing the PrK hatch would eliminate the use of one of the space station’s four Russian docking ports.

NASA hired a team of independent experts to assess the cracks and leaks and help determine the root cause, Cabana said. “This is an engineering problem that good engineers should be able to agree on.”

As a precaution, Barratt said space station crews also close the hatch separating the American and Russian sections of the space station when cosmonauts work in the PrK.

“The way it has affected us, primarily, is that when they come in and open that up to unload a cargo vehicle that’s docked there, they also took the time to inspect and try to repair when they can,” Barratt said. “We have taken a very conservative approach to closing the door between the American side and the Russian side for these periods.

“It’s not a comfortable thing, but it’s the best fit between all the smart people on both sides, and it’s something that we as a crew live with and adapt to.”