It’s occurred once more. A Russian Progress cargo spacecraft docked to the International Space Station has sprung a coolant leak, NASA stated in a press release on Saturday. This is the second incident of this sort in latest months after a Russian Soyuz spacecraft connected to the ISS spewed out coolant from a leak in December.
NASA stated “engineers on the Russian Mission Control Center exterior Moscow recorded a depressurization within the unpiloted Roscosmos Progress 82 cargo ship’s coolant loop, which is docked to the space-facing Poisk module on the station.” The reason behind the leak is below investigation.
The uncrewed Progress 82 (also called Progress MS-21) arrived in late October of final yr carrying a number of tons of meals, gas and provides. It’s at the moment full of trash for disposal and is scheduled to undock on Friday, Feb. 17, to expend in Earth’s environment.
Most importantly, the crew — which consists of three NASA astronauts, one Japanese astronaut and three Russian cosmonauts — is secure. “The hatches between the Progress 82 and the station are open, and temperatures and pressures aboard the station are all regular,” NASA stated. “The crew, which was knowledgeable of the cooling loop leak, is in no hazard and persevering with with regular area station operations.”
At least the Progress spacecraft is not used to hold people. NASA and Roscomos declared the leaky Soyuz MS-22 unfit to carry crew again to Earth, necessitating a brand new plan for getting NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin again house. The businesses hatched a plan to ship up a contemporary Soyuz in February and detach MS-22 with no crew on board.
Roscosmos and NASA suspect a micrometeorite (a tiny area rock) might have precipitated the Soyuz leak. It’s unknown but if the Progress downside may be traced to an identical supply or if the leak is coming from an identical location. A leak on a cargo craft is not as worrisome because the Soyuz leak, however the mixture of the 2 so shut collectively will probably set off further scrutiny of Russian spacecraft, particularly because the launch of a “alternative” Soyuz nears.