RPT - UN Office For Outer Space Affairs Says Closely Monitoring ISS Air Leak Incident

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 12th September, 2018) The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is closely following the situation with the hole in the fabric of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft, currently docked at the International Space Station (ISS), Simonetta Di Pippo, the director of the UNOOSA, told Sputnik on Tuesday.

"Clearly we are following everything that is happening in space, particularly on the ISS, very closely. The ISS is one of the models for international cooperation so we have strong connections with the ISS," Di Pippo said on the sidelines of the first UN Conference on Space Law and Policy, which started in Moscow earlier in the day, asked whether UNOOSA was monitoring the incident.

Di Pippo clarified that UNOOSA was not, however, officially involved in the investigation.

On August 30, the ISS crew found a microfracture in one of the walls of the living section of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft that caused a minor air leak. The hole was patched up on the same day.

A source in the special commission of Russian Energia Rocket and Space Corporation that is investigating the case said on Monday that the hole had been made deliberately, but the perpetrators had not been established yet.