MOSCOW: The Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS) sprung its third coolant leak in under a year on Monday, raising new questions about the reliability of the country’s space programme even as officials said crew members were not in danger.

Flakes of frozen coolant spraying into space were seen in an official live feed of the orbital lab provided by Nasa around 1:30pm Eastern Time (1730 GMT), and confirmed in radio chatter between US mission control and astronauts.

“The Nauka module of the Russian segment of the ISS has suffered a coolant leak from the external (backup) radiator circuit, which was delivered to the station in 2012,” Russian space agency Roscosmos said on Telegram, adding temperatures remained normal in the affected unit. “Nothing is threatening the crew and the station,” added the statement.

Nauka, which means “science” in Russian and is also known as the Multipurpose Laboratory Module-Upgrade (MLM), launched in 2021. US mission control in Houston could be heard asking astronauts on the American side to investigate.

“Hi, we’re seeing flakes outside, we need a crew to go to the cupola, we think windows five or six, and confirm any visual flakes,” an official said to the astronauts.

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2023