NASA said on May 1 that the International Space Station's PrK vestibule had started losing pressure again, with sensors showing a slow, steady drop inside the narrow corridor that links a docking port to the Zvezda Service Module. The agency said data analysis points to a loss of about one pound of air a day, a fresh turn in a problem that has shadowed the station's Russian side for years.
Josh Finch said there are no impacts to station operations, and NASA and Roscosmos are coordinating on next steps. That matters now because the station's leak problem has moved from a long-running nuisance into a renewed watch item just as NASA weighs how long to keep the orbiting lab flying. The station is officially due to retire in 2030, though NASA and the U.S. Congress are considering pushing that date back to 2032 or later.
The PrK section has been under pressure for years. The leak was first noticed in September 2019, and by 2024 the rate had doubled from one pound a day to a little over two before NASA said in January that pressure inside the tunnel had reached a stable configuration. Roscosmos has let the pressure in the tunnel gradually decrease while monitoring it and adding occasional nitrogen and oxygen, a controlled approach that has kept the issue from disrupting the rest of the outpost.
What makes the new reading harder to dismiss is the gap between the public line and the private language around the problem. NASA is saying the station is operating normally, yet officials have used the words catastrophic failure in internal meetings, underscoring how fragile this oldest Russian module has become even after repeated patches failed to fully solve the leak.
The next step is still unclear, and that uncertainty is the point. NASA and Roscosmos are coordinating on a response, but no specific repair plan has been confirmed for the renewed leak. If the pressure drop continues, it will keep the station's aging structure in the spotlight while managers also look ahead to the SpaceX-built deorbit vehicle expected to guide the station's roughly 450-ton mass into a controlled plunge over an uninhabited stretch of the South Pacific.
