Russia claims an “external impact” damaged its Progress spacecraft

Roscosmos, Russia’s leading space company, provided an update on Tuesday about two spacecraft that experienced a cooling system failure while attached to the International Space Station.

There were some notable things about these updates, not immediately available to Western audiences due to internet restrictions in Russia, but perhaps the most surprising claims were the Soyuz MS-22 and Progress MS-21 Both spacecraft were damaged near the radiator. By “external influences”. This seems highly unlikely, to say the least.

For those who haven’t paid attention to Russian roulette in space in recent months, here’s a rundown of what has happened since mid-December.

• On December 14, 2022, as two astronauts prepared to perform an EVA outside the space station, a nearby docked Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft lost control from its external cooling loop. started leaking. This Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft was scheduled to return astronauts Sergey Prokopiev and Dmitri Peterin, as well as his NASA’s Frank Rubio, to Earth in his March.
• On January 11, 2023, Roscosmos confirmed that a micrometeorite had struck the spacecraft’s outer cooling loop and determined it would be dangerous to return. Roscosmos and NASA officials said a replacement Soyuz spacecraft will launch to her space station in February and dock autonomously. Crew members who would have been flying on the damaged Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, including Rubio, are instead scheduled to return home in late 2023 on this Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft.
• On February 11, 2023, the Progress MS-21 supply vessel aboard the International Space Station lost pressure in its external cooling system. Again, all the coolant on board the Russian spacecraft leaked into space due to the rupture. This aircraft, which had been docked with the ISS since October, was released. Before re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, the spacecraft rotated so that astronauts could photograph the damaged area.

Tuesday’s update provides some new information. In one of them, Roscosmos confirmed that an unmanned Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the space station at 00:24 UTC on Friday. It will autonomously dock with the space station in about two days. Prokopiev, Peterin and Rubio will return home on the Soyuz in September. Russian space companies also said they were not planning to upgrade the Soyuz and Progress’s thermal control systems, which would be costly and would increase the mass of the spacecraft.

In its second update, Roscosmos draws tentative conclusions about the failure of the Progress MS-21 ship. “Based on a preliminary assessment of the situation on Progress MS-21 … the cargo ship experienced an external impact. This conclusion was made on the basis of photographs that revealed changes in the vehicle’s exterior. An external impact could mean that a small fragment of a micrometeorite or orbital debris must have hit the Progress spacecraft.

As part of the update, Roscosmos published photos of the Progress vehicle crash site. Comparing this image with a photograph of a Soyuz MS-22 vehicle, the damaged areas appear to have little in common.

During more than 20 years of operation, micrometeoroids and orbital debris debris have regularly damaged space stations and astronauts, but in the past two months, Soyuz and Progress cosmonauts As such, the impact has never had “serious consequences.” So what is the probability that within two months he will have two Russian vehicles crash into the same area and both collisions will disable the spacecraft’s thermal cooling system?The odds seem incredibly low. is.

Furthermore, if there are so many micrometeorites intersecting the orbit of the space station, why aren’t there many holes in the outpost? I don’t have sensors or other means of recording. However, given that the Soyuz and Progress vehicles make up less than 1% of the station’s footprint in space, any micrometeorite or debris cloud would likely cause significant damage to the ISS.

Needless to say, this is all very mysterious.