One other Russian spacecraft docked to the area station is leaking

Russia’s state-owned area company, Roscosmos, reported Saturday {that a} Progress provide ship connected to the Worldwide Area 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 area station was open. Notably, the incident with the provision ship got here inside hours of the protected docking of one other Progress ship, MS-22, which is in good well being.

Though the preliminary Roscosmos assertion was obscure in regards to the depressurization occasion, Dmitry Strugovets, a former head of area company Roscosmos’ press service, later clarified it was a coolant leak. “The entire coolant has leaked out,” he stated by way of Telegram.

That is the second Russian spacecraft to endure a cooling system leak in lower than two months on the area station.

Déjà vu

On December 14 2022, as two cosmonauts had been making ready to conduct a spacewalk exterior the area station, the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft docked close by started to leak uncontrollably from its exterior cooling loop. This method carries warmth away from the inside of the spacecraft.

This Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft had been resulting from carry 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 dwelling.

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 may have flown within the broken Soyuz MS-22 car, together with Rubio, will as an alternative fly dwelling 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’s not clear how instantly the leaky Progress and Soyuz spacecraft are associated. In line with one NASA supply, nonetheless, there was some preliminary knowledge acquired from the Progress car that indicated an identical cooling system challenge. Exterior cameras confirmed flakes transferring away from the Progress car—frozen coolant—much like that noticed with Soyuz MS-22.

Rising listing of failures

Roscosmos stated Saturday the Progress incident “could have no influence on the longer term station program.” That is seemingly true for Progress MS-21, at the very least. The spacecraft already has been filled with trash and different materials to be faraway from the station, and was resulting from depart subsequent week, burning up in Earth’s ambiance throughout reentry.

Nevertheless, it appears too early to make such a conclusion for future missions. A vital query is what induced 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 challenge—Russia has by no means launched pictures of the influence web site—and as an alternative maybe a producing defect.

A number 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 area 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 pressured 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 anticipate from an area business in Russia that’s reliant on ageing infrastructure, ageing expertise, and high quality management points resulting from insufficient budgets.