An inspection has revealed a 0.8-millimeter-wide hole in the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft that leaked coolant outside the International Space Station last week. Russia’s Roscosmos space agency will make a decision on the spacecraft’s flight capability later this month, at which point Russia may choose to accelerate the launch of a replacement capsule.
The hole is in the ship’s instrumentation compartment in the Soyuz service module, according to Roscosmos chief Yury Borisov, state news agency TASS reported. “The Soyuz’s primary guidance, navigation, control and computing systems are located in the instrumentation compartment, which is a sealed container filled with circulating nitrogen gas to cool the avionics equipment,” NASA says.
Soyuz MS-22 leaked on December 15, sending streams of coolant into space and canceling a Russian spacewalk. NASA and Roscosmos have said the incident poses no risk to the crew or the orbiting space station. A preliminary inspection with a robotic arm confirmed the leak shortly after it began on Thursday, with a follow-up inspection, carried out early today, now confirming the hole, which may have been caused by a micrometeorite or small piece of debris spatial
Today’s inspection “revealed that there is a small hole” in the instrumentation compartment “measuring about 0.8 mm, which caused the leak,” Borisov said on Monday, describing the current situation as “not very pleasant “. The Russian space agency has set a December 27 deadline to determine the status and fate of the damaged Soyuz spacecraft. Two task forces will decide whether the spacecraft can carry passengers and return to the surface, or whether it must be scrapped.
The MS-22 capsule is scheduled to return NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin to Earth in early spring, but the trio may have missed their trip. A SpaceX Crew Dragon is also stationed outside the ISS, but that’s reserved for NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and Anna Kikina of Roscosmos. The Crew Dragon cannot accommodate seven people, but there is an option for the Russian space agency to accelerate its next Soyuz launch to the ISS, the MS-23 mission.
“Of course, we have security options,” Borisov told state media Izvestia. “We will prepare the spacecraft faster. Instead of the scheduled descent in March, we will prepare it somewhere on February 19. It is already installed at the Baikonur spaceport and is undergoing all the tests,” he said. To which he added: “In this situation, we will simply undock Soyuz MS-22, come down to Earth and send a second [uncrewed] spacecraft to return to the crew.”
2. The decision on future actions will be taken on December 27. If there are doubts about the safety of Soyuz-MS22, it will be replaced by Soyuz MS-23 which can be prepared for flight on February 19.
— Katya Pavlushchenko (@katlinegrey) December 19, 2022
It’s not yet clear whether MS-22 is toast, but there are reasons for concern. As reported by the Associated Press, the temperature inside the capsule’s crew section rose to 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) as a result of the leak, while the temperature in the equipment section it temporarily rose to 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) before ground crews shut down some of the spacecraft’s systems.
The crew used fans to blow cooler air into the Soyuz capsule in an attempt to lower the temperature in the cabin, Roscosmos said, adding that “the temperature increase in the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft is permissible and is not critical to the operation of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft.” equipment or health of the crew in case they have to be on the spacecraft.” Borisov rejected speculation that the temperature in the Soyuz cabin rose to 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius), according to TASS.
According to NASA, Roscosmos flight controllers conducted a successful test of the Soyuz MS-22 thrusters on Friday, so there is at least some positive news. Additionally, NASA is moving forward with a planned spacewalk to continue the installation of the International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA), which was supposed to happen today, but will take place on Wednesday the 21st of December
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