Russia claims an “exterior affect” broken its Progress spacecraft

Russia’s principal area company, Roscosmos, offered updates on Tuesday about its two spacecraft that lately suffered failures to their cooling programs whereas connected to the Worldwide House Station.

Though there have been a number of objects of notice in these updates—which aren’t available to Western audiences attributable to Russian Web restrictions—maybe probably the most shocking declare is that each the Soyuz MS-22 and Progress MS-21 spacecraft had been broken close to their warmth radiators by “exterior impacts.” This appears extremely unbelievable, to say the least.

For individuals who have not been being attentive to the Russian roulette in area in latest months, this is a abstract of what has occurred since mid-December:

• 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 Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft had been attributable to convey cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, in addition to NASA’s Frank Rubio, again to Earth in March.
• On January 11, 2023, Roscosmos confirmed {that a} micrometeorite had struck the exterior cooling loop of the spacecraft and deemed it unsafe to fly residence. Officers from Roscosmos and NASA mentioned a substitute Soyuz spacecraft would launch to and autonomously dock with the station in February. The crew that may have flown within the broken Soyuz MS-22 automobile, together with Rubio, will as an alternative fly residence on this Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft later in 2023.
• On February 11, 2023, the Progress MS-21 provide ship connected to the Worldwide House Station misplaced strain in its exterior cooling system. As soon as once more, all the coolant on board a Russian spacecraft leaked into area attributable to a rupture. This automobile, which had been docked to the ISS since October, has indifferent. Earlier than it reentered Earth’s ambiance, the automobile rotated itself to permit cosmonauts to {photograph} the broken space.

Tuesday’s updates present some new data. In considered one of them, Roscosmos confirmed that the uncrewed Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft would launch to the area station on Friday at 00:24 UTC from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It should dock autonomously with the area station about two days later. Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio will fly residence aboard this Soyuz in September. The Russian area company additionally mentioned it doesn’t plan any upgrades to the thermal management programs on its Soyuz and Progress autos, as this may be pricey and enhance the mass of the spacecraft.

In a second replace, Roscosmos attracts preliminary conclusions concerning the failure of the Progress MS-21 ship. “Based mostly on a preliminary evaluation of the state of affairs with Progress MS-21 …  the cargo ship skilled an exterior affect. This conclusion was made primarily based on photographs that exposed adjustments on the outside of the automobile.” An exterior affect possible means both a micrometeorite or small fragment of orbital particles will need to have struck the Progress spacecraft.

As a part of the replace, Roscosmos launched {a photograph} of the affect web site on the Progress automobile. When this picture is in comparison with {a photograph} of the Soyuz MS-22 automobile, there seems to be little commonality within the broken space:

Though micrometeoroids and specks of orbital particles have periodically broken the area station and visiting autos throughout greater than twenty years of operation, impacts have by no means resulted in “severe penalties” like with the Soyuz and Progress autos within the final two months. So what are the percentages that two Russian autos can be struck in the identical common space in two months, with each of those strikes disabling the spacecraft’s thermal cooling programs? The chances appear extremely low.

Furthermore, if there are such a lot of micrometeorites intersecting with the area station’s orbit, why is the outpost not riddled with holes? NASA doesn’t presently have a sensor or different technique of recording hits to the ISS until they trigger notable injury. However on condition that the Soyuz and Progress autos solely make up 1 % or much less of the station’s footprint in area, the ISS would possible be incurring important injury if there was a cloud of micrometeorites or particles.

For sure, all of that is fairly mysterious.