Russia complains to NASA about the smell of alcohol on International Space Station
Russia sent request to the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in connection with the isopropyl alcohol emissions on the International Space Station (ISS), announced the head of The Yuri A. Gagarin State Scientific Research-and-Testing Cosmonaut Training Center, Pavel Vlasov, in an interview with RIA Novosti.
According to Vlasov, this emission was recorded after the reusable Dragon 2 spacecraft of the Ilon Mask company SpaceX docked to the ISS.
As the head of the Russian Cosmonaut Training Center noted, the concentration of this organic compound increased from one-tenth of a milligram to six milligrams per cubic meter. After turning on the air purification system, it was possible to reduce it to around two milligrams.
Isopropyl alcohol is flammable and moderately toxic. Its maximum permissible concentration in the air is 10 milligrams per cubic meter. It does not accumulate in the body.
Dragon 2 delivered to the International Space Station food supplies, equipment and materials for research experiments with a total weight of 2.5 tons.
The mission called CRS-17 is already the 17th SpaceX commercial cargo delivery to the ISS since 2012. The Dragon cargo spacecraft has been used for such missions for the second time.
The Russian Soyuz spaceships began to fulfill this task after in 2011 the United States stopped using the Shuttle spacecraft to deliver astronauts and cargo . After the expiration of the contract with Russia in November 2019, SpaceX and Boeing plan to take over this function within the NASA Commercial Crew Program.
Currently, there are three Russians working on the ISS, as well as two American and one Canadian astronaut.