MOSCOW, August 21. /TASS/. The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) has gathered inside the Russian segment and closed the hatches following an air leak detected aboard the orbital outpost, a spokesman for Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos on Friday.

"The hatches of the American segment and between the American and Russian segments have been closed," the spokesman said, adding that the crew will stay inside the Russian segment until Monday evening. Along with specialists of the mission control centers, they will control air pressure inside the closed modules to spot the possible air leak site.

"The results of these works will be discussed with the partners in the first half of the day on Monday and a further plan of action will be decided after that," the spokesman said.

Earlier, the hatches of the MIM-1 Russian module, the SO-1 (Pirs) Russian module and the Progress MS-15 resupply ship docked were closed. According to Roscosmos, "the data received from the ISS crew, which is controlling the pressure levels in the modules, indicate that the pressure remains normal."

Air leak on ISS

A source told TASS on August 20 that the Russian-US crew on the ISS was tracking down a discovered air leak. As the source said, "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."

The crewmembers were planning to sequentially seal off the station’s modules to track down the area where the pressure was failing.

Roscosmos told TASS that all the ISS crewmembers would move to the Zvezda service module for three days to organize air pressure control in the American segment’s modules. As Roscosmos specified, "during the three-day stay in the Russian segment, the crew will perform routine work."

The ISS crew comprises NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner.