Roscosmos Calls 'Manufacturing Dismissal' Causes Of Cooling Leaks On Spacecraft On ISS

Soyuz anchored on the ISS lost all of its cooling into space. (photo: dock, nasa)

JAKARTA - The Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos) is investigating the cause of the two spacecraft anchored at the International Space Station (ISS) and experienced a two-month cooling leak, recently.

So far, they have stated due to manufacturing defects. NASA's ISS program manager, Joel Montalbano, said the incident prompted Roscosmos to take a closer look at the manufacturing process of the Russian spacecraft.

On December 14, 2022, it was discovered that a Soyuz astronaut-carrying spacecraft anchored on the ISS lost all of its cooling into space, attributed to previous Russian officials as a result of the micrometeoroid (MMOD) orbital debris attack.

Then on February 11, the Progress cargo ship on the ISS also suffered a similar leak. Roscosmos attributed the issue to external influences arising during the October 2022 cargo ship launch. But that's far from the final verdict.

"Apart from the MMOD team and Roscosmos and Energia, they are looking at manufacturing," Montalbano said on Saturday evening March 11, during a press conference discussing the success of returning to Earth from SpaceX's Crew-5 astronaut mission hours earlier.

Energia is the main contractor for Russia's human space flight program, the company is building Soyuz and Progress.

"Is there something there? Is there any change in the production of this vehicle? That's exactly what we're going to do on our side, isn't it? You see all the data you have, see everything," said Montalbano.

Roscosmos considers the leaked Soyuz, known as MS-22, unfit to carry three Frank Rubio astronauts from NASA, cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin back to Earth, except in the ISS emergency evacuation case.

So, last month, Russia launched a replacement for Soyuz, MS-23 to the ISS. Montalbano said NASA believes the new Soyuz can repatriate the three astronauts, but the agency will continue to monitor them.

"The belief is good, but we're always looking for it. You know, that's the best we've done in the space program. And it's done both on the Roscosmos side and on the NASA side," explained Montalbano.

Soyuz MS-22 brought Rubio, Prokopyev, and Petelin to the ISS in September 2022. All three were supposed to return to Earth this month, but the leak had delayed their return in September 2023.

The trip will be carried out with Soyuz MS-23. While MS-22, is scheduled to land later this month, in an unmanned state.

However, the leaking spacecraft will burst into the Earth's atmosphere, so NASA and Roscosmos engineers cannot check the hardware that was damaged up close.

The same applies to the leaking Progress, the cargo ship left the ISS last month and was destroyed in Earth's atmosphere. This was quoted from Space, Wednesday, March 15.