Axiom manned flight to ISS rescheduled; NASA attempts to clarify ISS leak situation
In a NASA update today, it announced a new launch date of June 19, 2025 for Axiom’s fourth manned flight to ISS while also attempting to clarify ISS leak situation that caused this last and more extended delay.
On June 12, NASA and Axiom Space delayed the mission as the agency continued to work with Roscosmos to understand the most recent repair efforts to seal small leaks. The leaks, located in the aft (back) most segment of the International Space Station’s Zvezda service module, have been monitored by flight controllers for the past few years.
Following the most-recent repair, pressure in the transfer tunnel has been stable. Previously, pressure in this area would have dropped. This could indicate the small leaks have been sealed. Teams are also considering the stable pressure could be the result of a small amount of air flowing into the transfer tunnel across the hatch seal from the main part of space station. By changing pressure in the transfer tunnel and monitoring over time, teams are evaluating the condition of the transfer tunnel and the hatch seal between the space station and the back of Zvezda.
It appears, though NASA doesn’t say so directly, that the Russians did not wish to change the situation at ISS with another docking — even if it was a docking on the American half of the station — while it was evaluating these leak repairs. It now appears they have gotten enough data to allow NASA to set a new launch date later this week.
If the repairs have managed to stop the leaks this is excellent news. At the same time, it doesn’t reduce the risks of a catastrophic failure of Zvezda, since the existence of these numerous stress fractures in its hull suggest a chronic long term failure that can only worsen with time.
The sudden delay of Axiom’s AX-4 last week also indicates poor coordination between NASA and Roscosmos. It was as if NASA had no idea the repair work was occurring, either because it wasn’t paying attention to what the Russians were doing or because the Russians had kept this work secret until it was completed. In either case, this is not how such a partnership should operate.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
In a NASA update today, it announced a new launch date of June 19, 2025 for Axiom’s fourth manned flight to ISS while also attempting to clarify ISS leak situation that caused this last and more extended delay.
On June 12, NASA and Axiom Space delayed the mission as the agency continued to work with Roscosmos to understand the most recent repair efforts to seal small leaks. The leaks, located in the aft (back) most segment of the International Space Station’s Zvezda service module, have been monitored by flight controllers for the past few years.
Following the most-recent repair, pressure in the transfer tunnel has been stable. Previously, pressure in this area would have dropped. This could indicate the small leaks have been sealed. Teams are also considering the stable pressure could be the result of a small amount of air flowing into the transfer tunnel across the hatch seal from the main part of space station. By changing pressure in the transfer tunnel and monitoring over time, teams are evaluating the condition of the transfer tunnel and the hatch seal between the space station and the back of Zvezda.
It appears, though NASA doesn’t say so directly, that the Russians did not wish to change the situation at ISS with another docking — even if it was a docking on the American half of the station — while it was evaluating these leak repairs. It now appears they have gotten enough data to allow NASA to set a new launch date later this week.
If the repairs have managed to stop the leaks this is excellent news. At the same time, it doesn’t reduce the risks of a catastrophic failure of Zvezda, since the existence of these numerous stress fractures in its hull suggest a chronic long term failure that can only worsen with time.
The sudden delay of Axiom’s AX-4 last week also indicates poor coordination between NASA and Roscosmos. It was as if NASA had no idea the repair work was occurring, either because it wasn’t paying attention to what the Russians were doing or because the Russians had kept this work secret until it was completed. In either case, this is not how such a partnership should operate.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
It’s difficult to avoid the impression of two space agencies trapped in this flying machine. Trapped by their own political imperatives — imperatives that require some dissembling not only with their own votaries and stakeholders, but with each other, too.
Of course, human spaceflight programs have been political creations right from the very start. As Charles Murray once put it, Kennedy’s decision to adopt Apollo “was a completely political—almost cynical—decision.” The only difference between the American and Soviet programs of the 60’s and those which have been adopted since is that they were mission driven programs, rather than vendor driven programs.
And the International Space Station has been notoriously so. In the 80’s, it was a way to keep certain rice bowls filled while keeping pace with the Soviets at a cost and risk level that American political leadership could accept. In the 1990’s, the rice bowl imperative remained but the others shifted to saving both Boris Yeltsin’s regime and its talented aerospace engineers from much more dangerous fates. In the 2000’s, the Bush administration’s taming of ISS’s spiraling costs and the subsequent urgency of retiring the Shuttle changed the imperative again to increased reliance on the Russians for not only lifeboat capability but even crew transport for an extended time.
Today, however, all these imperatives but the rice bowls have dissipated. Instead, both agencies now desperately hug the station tightly as their only viable human spaceflight program, with the NASA replacement(s) repeatedly delayed and any Russian replacement more or less impossible due to collapsing funding and capability. To admit that this project is now becoming rapidly untenable would come at a political cost neither wants to pay. The situation is worse for the Russians, of course, thanks not just to the absence of a vibrant commercial space industry but also thanks to the constraints that dictatorships must operate under along with the eternal Russian sense of inferiority.
So they dissemble to us, and they dissemble to each other. But neither knows what else to do. And the theater goes on, until the station itself forces the performance to conclude.
Well said.
It’s difficult to estimate how much of the ostentatious bonhomie displayed aboard ISS whenever a new crew arrives is real and how much is not, but we now have at least an approximate target date for when that ceases to be an issue. Unless, of course, the ISS, itself, takes a hand before that.
Oh…I expect it’s mostly sincere, but mostly because of the relief from the extended isolation that ISS service imposes. You’re stuck in a cramped metallic apartment with six other human beings for months on end, and even the upgraded Wifi only goes so far in extending your human contact. Finally a new batch of human beings shows up, and it’s got to be difficult not to get a little excited. I have heard from people who have worked in the Antarctic bases (who have more space and more people) who speak of this kind of experience.
And in connection with that….I don’t know if you watched all of Jared Isaacman’s podcast interview, but I was struck by the ideas he had hoped to try out for ISS: missions reduced to four months rather than stretched to eight months, reconfiguring Crew Dragon (and Starliner?) to accommodate the full 7 passengers, more commercial flight opportunities. Basically, trying to maximize the utility of what time ISS has left to amp up the commercial LEO market by getting more people up there and reducing the cost per seat for those people as a segue to commercial stations. Obviously, I do not know how well briefed he has been on the state of ISS and its leaks, but… I will close by saying that I am unsure if his ideas are the best way to go, but I think he was at least aiming at the right goal.
No fan of Murray or Proxmire here.
Axiom’s first delay was due to a leak on the SpaceX end side of things.
It would be nice if oxygen said to itself “I’m only going to leak from some Russian/Commie craft—never Capitalist SpaceX. Dragons.
But that isn’t what happens.
Oxygen treats all with equal disdain.
Whatever one might think of Charles Murray’s politics, if there’s a better one volume history of the Apollo program than his and Cox’s book, I am not aware of it.
Richard M,
Haven’t looked at the Isaacman podcast yet. On my to-do list. Sounds as though he had a lot of good ideas anent reforming NASA. Perhaps whomever does wind up being Administrator will see fit to crib his ideas.
Jeff Wright,
I believe Axiom 4’s first delay was due to weather, the second was due to the F9 oxygen leak and the third due to dodgy Russkie hardware on ISS.
Re: commies vs. capitalists, it’s worth noting that the F9 leak was fixed in a day. The Russkie leaks on ISS have been festering for years despite numerous “repairs.”
They likely caused the leak on purpose anyway.
My biggest credit card purchases have been to mechanics….due to a water leak I paid them to fix my engine seized up–all I heard is how tough it is to find leaks. Another kid said my car was making noise because it was old–blasted serpentine belt was the problem.
I have only met one or two that didn’t deserve to burn in torment.
Jeff Wright,
Re – the Russian ISS leaks there’s an old bit of wisdom to the effect that one should not attribute to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence. Cui bono? I can’t see any way in which the leaks have advantaged the Russians. That applies to leaks in Progress and Soyuz vehicles as well.
I, too, have encountered more than my share of predatory/incompetent mechanics. Over the past half-century, vehicular bothers have done more than any other single thing to keep me poor. As my bad eye has prevented me from passing the CA DMV eye exam for more than a decade – one good eye used to be enough, but no more – I no longer own an automobile and miss neither the expense nor the bother. I eagerly await the advent of Tesla’s upcoming Robotaxi fleet operations to handle the diminishing need I have to drive anywhere.