NASA
Russia’s state-owned house company, Roscosmos, reported Saturday {that a} Progress provide ship connected to the International Space Station has misplaced strain in its exterior cooling system.
In its assertion, Roscosmos stated there was no risk to the seven crew members on board the orbiting laboratory. NASA, too, stated the hatch between the Progress MS-21 car and the house station was open. Notably, the incident with the availability ship got here inside hours of the secure docking of one other Progress ship, MS-22, which is in good well being.
Although the preliminary Roscosmos assertion was obscure concerning the depressurization occasion, Dmitry Strugovets, a former head of house company Roscosmos’ press service, later clarified it was a coolant leak. “All of the coolant has leaked out,” he stated by way of Telegram.
This is the second Russian spacecraft to endure a cooling system leak in lower than two months on the house station.
Déjà vu
On December 14 2022, as two cosmonauts have been making ready to conduct a spacewalk outdoors the house station, the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft docked close by started to leak uncontrollably from its exterior cooling loop. This system carries warmth away from the inside of the spacecraft.
This Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft had been as a result of deliver cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, in addition to NASA’s Frank Rubio, again to Earth in March. Russian engineers ultimately declared {that a} micrometeorite had struck the exterior cooling loop of the spacecraft, and deemed it unsafe to fly residence.
In January, officers from Roscosmos and NASA stated a alternative Soyuz spacecraft will launch to and autonomously dock with the station in February. The crew that might have flown within the broken Soyuz MS-22 car, together with Rubio, will as an alternative fly residence on this Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft later in 2023. The leaky Soyuz MS-22 car will make an autonomous return to Earth, bereft of crew, seemingly in March.
It will not be clear how instantly the leaky Progress and Soyuz spacecraft are associated. According to at least one NASA supply, nonetheless, there was some preliminary information obtained from the Progress car that indicated the same cooling system concern. External cameras confirmed flakes transferring away from the Progress car—frozen coolant—just like that noticed with Soyuz MS-22.
Growing record of failures
Roscosmos stated Saturday the Progress incident “may have no influence on the longer term station program.” This is probably going true for Progress MS-21, not less than. The spacecraft already has been full of trash and different materials to be faraway from the station, and was as a result of go away subsequent week, burning up in Earth’s environment throughout reentry.
However, it appears too early to make such a conclusion for future missions. A essential query is what brought on the depressurization occasion noticed Saturday. It appears unbelievable {that a} second micrometeorite would have struck as second Russian spacecraft in lower than two months. This raises doubts about whether or not the Soyuz MS-22 failure was certainly a micrometeorite concern—Russia has by no means launched photos of the influence web site—and as an alternative maybe a producing defect.
A couple of hours after the Progress depressurization Saturday there are extra questions than solutions, however none of this can consolation NASA because it companions with Russia to proceed working the house station. This newest Soyuz and Progress failures are simply two in a protracted line of current points, together with the Nauka module’s misfiring thrusters in 2021, a Soyuz booster failure in 2018 that compelled Aleksey Ovchinin and Nick Hague to make an emergency return to Earth, or one other leaky Soyuz car.
These are the sorts of issues that one would possibly count on from an area trade in Russia that’s reliant on getting older infrastructure, getting older know-how, and high quality management points as a result of insufficient budgets.