MOSCOW: A smoke alarm sounded on Thursday in Russia’s segment of the International Space Station (ISS) and astronauts smelled “burning” on board, Russia’s space agency and Nasa said.

The incident, which the Russian space agency Roscosmos said happened at 01:55 GMT ahead of a scheduled spacewalk, is the latest in a string of problems to spur safety concerns over conditions on the Russian segment.

“A smoke detector was triggered in the Zvezda service module of the Russian segment of the International Space Station during automatic battery charging, and an alarm went off,” Rosco­smos said in a statement.

French astronaut Thomas Pesquet said “the smell of burning plastic or electronic equipment” wafted to the US segment of the station, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported, citing a Nasa broadcast.

The Russian crew turned on a filter and after the air was cleaned up the astronauts went back to sleep, Roscosmos said.

The space agency said that a planned spacewalk would go ahead as scheduled.

Published in Dawn, September 10th, 2021