"The air gathered between the windows of the porthole in the course of the crew work on the elimination of the leak," the NASA PR representative in Russia Sergei Puzanov disclosed to a RIA Novosti correspondent.
He said that the leak was discovered on January 11th by ISS crew captain Michael Foale with a device that listens to the ultrasound shriek of escaping air. The next day together with his Russian colleague Aleksander Kaleri the American astronaut replaced the damaged steel harness with a pressure-tight plug.
The necessary spare part was delivered to the ISS crew on board of the Russian space carrier Progress M1-11. "Michael Foale and Aleksander Kaleri plan to install the spare part instead of the damaged one in the nearest future," Puzanov noted.
In order to check for leaks American module Destiny was isolated in January from the rest of the ISS for 2 days.
As a result of the tests on the pressure leaks in various parts of the ISS the Mission Control Centers of the both countries concluded that there were no any other pressure leaks on the station.
Before the leak was detected the air pressure aboard the ISS was decreasing 1 mm of the mercury column per day.
