A Russian spacecraft docked to the International Space Station suffered a coolant leak.
Disturbing news, since it is not the first of its kind to reach us from the skies. A leak had already been spotted on December 15 on the Soyuz MS-22, requiring the empty MS-23 capsule to be sent into space in order to repatriate the astronauts present in the station. Would there be problems on the Russian hardware side?
A leak on the Progress 82 cargo ship
Concerns are mounting on the International Space Station. The ISS, which currently has five vessels, had indeed already noticed a leak on one of its two habitable capsules, the Soyuz MS-22. Now it’s his cargo ships passing through an area of turbulence, with a leak recorded at the Progress 82 cargo ship. With a similar finding: coolant leak.
So far, few details have been released. “ The reason for the loss of coolant in the Progress 82 spacecraft is under investigation “simply explained NASA. This spacecraft had been docked with the ISS since October 28, and was, before the announcement of the space agency, to return to the direction of the earth on February 17.
What happens to Russian ships?
And the investigation should not be easy to carry out, the ships of the Progress type being built to disintegrate when they return to the Earth’s atmosphere after carrying out their mission. This means that the Russian space agency Roscosmos will not have all the elements to find the causes of this damage.
Something to raise questions among its partners. The investigations on the problems of Soyuz MS-22 had finally concluded with an impact of a thousandth of diameter created by a micrometeorite, and which would have affected the radiator as well as one of the pipes of fluid.
But if a single event of this type is often an accident, two similar events, two months apart, are beginning to seriously sow doubt. This may not be a coincidence. As reminded Engadget, Russia has never produced images of the impact on MS-22. What will be the explanation this time?
Source : Engadget
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