Interfax: Space station air pressure stabilized
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The international space station has a crew of two.
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MOSCOW (Reuters) -- Air pressure on the international space station has stabilized after a steady decrease over the past two weeks triggered concerns over a possible leak, Interfax news agency reported Thursday.
NASA and Russian space officials have said the loss of pressure, first reported on December 22, did not endanger the crew because there were adequate air supplies on board. But they have been at a loss to explain the cause.
Since hearing about the possible leak Monday, NASA astronaut Michael Foale and Russian Alexander Kaleri have inspected the station's valves and hatches but found nothing.
"The pressure inside the station is stable," Interfax quoted a mission control spokesman as saying.
NASA has suggested a faulty oxygen generator that has worked only intermittently, rather than a leak, may have caused the pressure to drop.
U.S. concerns that failing air and water monitors on the station were endangering crew safety have dogged Foale and Kaleri's stay since they began a 200-day mission in October.
Despite the speculation on the ground over the station's condition, the astronauts prepared Thursday to hoist the platform into higher orbit.
To compensate for the earth's powerful gravitational force that is slowly pulling the station toward earth, the engines of a Russian Progress M-48 capsule that docked with the station in August will lift it higher later in the day.
The station, which weighs more than 455 tons and covers the area of a football pitch, sinks about 660 feet every day. Its orbital height was last adjusted in October.
On average the station orbits 250 miles above the earth's surface.
The station has depended on Russia to launch all manned and cargo ships since February 2003, when the United States grounded its space shuttles after the Columbia shuttle broke apart on re-entry, killing seven astronauts.
NASA and its station partners in Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada opened the orbiting laboratory to long-term crews in 2000.
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