MOSCOW, August 25. /TASS/: The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) has completed its isolation in two Russian modules and is beginning to open hatches, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos told TASS on Tuesday.
"The Flight Control Center has given a command to the ISS crew to open the hatches between the Russian and American segments of the station," Roscosmos said.
The process of opening the hatches will take about one hour, it specified.
Roscosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin earlier told TASS that the pressure aboard the orbital outpost had stabilized after maintenance work in the US segment.
A source in the space industry told TASS last week that the ISS crew was tracking down an air leak. The source said that "the air leak was registered by the sensors of the station’s Russian segment for measuring the content of nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide in the station’s atmosphere."
Roscosmos earlier told TASS that all the ISS crewmembers had moved to the Russian modules for three days to organize air pressure control in the American segment’s modules.
As Roscosmos said on Monday, specialists believe that all the inspected modules on the space station are air tight.
The ISS crew comprises NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner.
