CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- Space station crews will have to put up with increased risk and noise because of Russia's failure to meet NASA safety standards, the General Accounting Office says.
Russian components for the International Space Station do not meet NASA safety requirements for shielding, windows and noise levels. In addition, equipment in the orbiting Zarya segment and the yet-to-be-launched Zvezda service module will fail if cabin pressure is lost, and that could jeopardize the entire station.
Those preliminary findings were presented to the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics on Thursday by the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress.
NASA space station chief Michael Hawes said the problems will not delay the planned July launch of Russia's service module with life-support systems. The module is more than two years late because of Russian money woes and, more recently, Russian rocket problems.
NASA has known about these problems for some time, Hawes said, and they will be resolved in orbit. The Russians have agreed to NASA safety standards even though their own requirements are less stringent, he noted.
"We have been making progress with the Russians on all of these, and I don't see any of these that would keep us from launching the service module this summer," Hawes said Friday.
While the Russians have complied with most of NASA's space station safety standards, their equipment falls short in four critical areas, said Allen Li, an associate director for the GAO.
The service module, which will double as living quarters, provides inadequate protection against space junk, Li said. It was supposed to have no more than a 2.4 percent probability of a penetration over a 15-year period, but instead has a 25 percent probability.
NASA and the Russian Space Agency have agreed to add shielding in orbit. But until that's completed in 2004, astronauts and cosmonauts will be exposed to additional risk, Li said.
The space station program also requires that equipment in pressurized modules be able to function if cabin pressure is lost because of leaking seals or holes caused by space junk. But the equipment in Zarya and the Zvezda service module would fail if pressure were lost, and the station would go out of control, Li said.
To work around this problem, NASA plans to install navigation and guidance equipment in U.S. components, but not until 2001.
NASA has yet to verify that the service module windows meet space station specifications, Li said. And like the orbiting Zarya, the service module is too noisy.
Astronauts and cosmonauts plan to install mufflers in the service module after it's launched. They still may have to wear earplugs, though, which could prevent them from hearing alarms.
Zarya was launched by the Russians in November 1998. NASA followed with the second component, Unity, in December 1998.
Everything is on hold until the third part -- Russia's service module -- can be launched.
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