Second Soyuz Springs a Leak, Astronauts Stuck On ISS For An Extra Month (theregister.com) 47
Russia's space agency will hold off returning three astronauts from the International Space Station as it works with NASA to investigate a coolant leak issue that impacted an uncrewed freighter spacecraft last weekend. The Register reports: The Progress MS-21 -- also known as the Progress 82 spacecraft -- arrived at the floating space lab in October 2022 carrying water and other supplies. After months of being docked to the station's Poisk module, the vehicle suddenly began spewing liquid coolant. On February 11, engineers at the Russian Mission Control Center detected a drop in pressure inside its coolant loop, but the station and the crew onboard are safe.
The Progress 82 spacecraft is currently being filled with trash and is scheduled to undock on February 17 and be disposed of over the Pacific Ocean. It began leaking coolant just as the Russian uncrewed Progress 83 cargo spacecraft successfully docked with the station's Zvezda service module. NASA and Roscosmos are now investigating the coolant glitch on Progress 82 as it's the second Soyuz incident of late after the Soyuz MS-22 began leaking in December. It's not clear what might have caused that malfunction, although one possibility that has been floated is that a micrometeoroid pierced an exterior radiator.
Yury Borisov, Roscosmos's director general, said cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, as well as NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, will have to remain onboard until March at the earliest while officials examine the coolant loop's depressurization, according to Reuters. Their space ferry had been due to launch on February 20 but that has been pushed back to March 10 at the earliest. "Officials are monitoring all International Space Station systems and are not tracking any other issues," NASA concluded.
The Progress 82 spacecraft is currently being filled with trash and is scheduled to undock on February 17 and be disposed of over the Pacific Ocean. It began leaking coolant just as the Russian uncrewed Progress 83 cargo spacecraft successfully docked with the station's Zvezda service module. NASA and Roscosmos are now investigating the coolant glitch on Progress 82 as it's the second Soyuz incident of late after the Soyuz MS-22 began leaking in December. It's not clear what might have caused that malfunction, although one possibility that has been floated is that a micrometeoroid pierced an exterior radiator.
Yury Borisov, Roscosmos's director general, said cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, as well as NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, will have to remain onboard until March at the earliest while officials examine the coolant loop's depressurization, according to Reuters. Their space ferry had been due to launch on February 20 but that has been pushed back to March 10 at the earliest. "Officials are monitoring all International Space Station systems and are not tracking any other issues," NASA concluded.
Well now (Score:2)
I guess we'd better get our brooms ready.
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I guess we'd better get our brooms ready.
Sure, why not? This was a PROGRESS vessel, literally a cargo vessel on a garbage mission. I think we would be better off sweeping the "editors" into the craft and hiring editors with experience.
Progress is not Soyuz (Score:3, Informative)
NASA and Roscosmos are now investigating the coolant glitch on Progress 82 as it's the second Soyuz incident of late after the Soyuz MS-22 began leaking in December.
Progress is not Soyuz. It's two different space vehicles. Progress is an unmanned cargo spacecraft. Soyuz is a manned spacecraft.
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They have a lot of commonality though.
Re:Progress is not Soyuz (Score:5, Informative)
NASA and Roscosmos are now investigating the coolant glitch on Progress 82 as it's the second Soyuz incident of late after the Soyuz MS-22 began leaking in December.
Progress is not Soyuz. It's two different space vehicles. Progress is an unmanned cargo spacecraft. Soyuz is a manned spacecraft.
Agreed. I know it's fashionable to rag on Slashdot for delayed news and repeated news, but this is also (accidentally) misleading news.
To date there are two failures: Soyuz MS-22 in December 14th and Progress MS-21 February 11th.
There has been no second Soyuz failure. The second Russian cooling failure occurred three days ago and I expect most of us read about it then, at news outlets that properly differentiated between Soyuz and Progress. To read this headline here, today, immediately suggests there's been a third failure... which would be quite alarming.
I've never complained about Slashdot editors before because it usually doesn't matter if there's a dupe or news about some new tech product release or whatnot delayed a few days. This... shouldn't have been written this way or delayed this long.
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Slashdot editors wrote neither the article nor the title. Both came from The Register.
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Slashdot editors wrote neither the article nor the title. Both came from The Register.
Thank you for that. I find it surprising as usually The Reg is pretty good, but you're completely correct.
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To read this headline here, today, immediately suggests there's been a third failure... which would be quite alarming.
That was my first thought, then I saw it was from The Register, and I realized, they probably just mangled the recent news. Their scoops are usually fake, so if you think you see breaking news there... think again.
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Yes... and no. Progress is a highly modified Soyuz with a very different front end. Otherwise two share a large number of subsystems, and in particular the Orbital Module (where the cooling system is located) is virtually identical.
As Oscar Wilde might have commented (Score:3)
'To suffer one leak may be regarded as a misfortune, to suffer two looks like carelessness'
https://www.goodreads.com/quot... [goodreads.com]
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Either that or a slack bladder.
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Or Fleming:
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. [brainyquote.com]
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'To suffer one leak may be regarded as a misfortune, to suffer two looks like carelessness'
https://www.goodreads.com/quot... [goodreads.com]
Given the current international context with Russia, one could find reasons to attribute these incidents to the opposite of Hanlon's razor with Roscosmos.
Simply breath taking. (Score:3, Funny)
Even Air is trying to escape Russian territory. :-)
easier... (Score:2)
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They could put a second "skin" around their existing tubes, and keep that skin at (say) half pressure. The outer skin now has less pressure to maintain, the inner skin has less pressure to maintain and looking at the (now) inner skin doesn't need a full space suit and spacewalk to do - you could probably do it with an oxygen mask and a boilersuit.
A simple problem solved with a simple solution, and a few hundred billion dollars. I tell ya, Nasa should hire me - I've got all the best ideas.
The US should abandon ISS and this is why: (Score:3, Insightful)
The enemy space program is indivisible from everything else and this naive, stupid gesture should never have happened in the first place. The US can easily afford its own space program and the sooner ISS is abandoned the better. It only has a few years left anyway so no reasons exist to maintain it or the relationship with genocidal Russia. (Cue yowling Glavset shills...)
Sharing a program with Russia makes less sense than sharing a space program with North Korea if we go by body counts. There is simply no justification for enabling Russian aerospace technology and research. All Russian activity is invisible from military support no matter how intensely unworldly space fans wish otherwise.
Shut ISS down and shut down anyone who opposes shutting it down. If it hurts feelings ignore that, too. One need not respect human obstacles. To support cooperation with Russia is to endorse the Bucha massacre and much more.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/1... [nytimes.com]
Re:The US should abandon ISS and this is why: (Score:4, Informative)
We're not going to abandon our only space station and let Russia have the premier manned orbital platform. We have to keep it up there until we have a replacement station actually operating. It's the only way to be sure.
Re:The US should abandon ISS and this is why: (Score:4, Interesting)
Shut ISS down and shut down anyone who opposes shutting it down.
And what does it mean to "shut down anyone who opposes shutting it down"? Fire them? Kill them? Stifle their free speech? That sure sounds like how Russia handles things to me...
I do have to at least partially agree with you, that in the near future if SpaceX gets Starship functional, it will revolutionize the ability to build space stations. Starship has 5 times the cargo weight capacity of the Space Shuttle, and like the Falcon 9 will be able function at an absurdly lower price per flight. Those two things combined means insanely lower cost to heft mass into orbit. However it will require designing a second stage capable of deploying and assembling things in space, including space walks. I also wonder about the feasibility of removing components from the ISS and using them for a new space station, such as the solar arrays, Canadarm, etc. That's probably not economically feasible but is fun to daydream about at least.
Another option, if this is reasonable from a command and control perspective, is for the US to buy out the Russia portions of ISS. However I'm sure we'd need some guarantee we can actually control and maintain the modules totally independent of Russia, which is probably impossible, as I'm sure there's a ton of proprietary communications and computer systems that we'd never fully be able to integrate or take over.
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Shut ISS down and shut down anyone who opposes shutting it down.
And what does it mean to "shut down anyone who opposes shutting it down"? Fire them? Kill them? Stifle their free speech? That sure sounds like how Russia handles things to me...
Kill them. Speech has consequences - or so the forces for constrained speech have been saying for years. We are just reaching the logical conclusion.
Re:The US should abandon ISS and this is why: (Score:5, Interesting)
Baby with the bathwater, much?
You're going to annoy all the other countries that have contributed to (and continue to contribute to) the ISS just because of what Russia is doing? You should get a job in diplomacy, you're clearly great at it.
90% of the ISS is just fine - switch out the Russian parts and you're all good. If you want to retire it, then do so - once you have a suitable replacement or follow-up programme in place. The US could probably do it all by itself, but by getting a few other countries involved, they save a boat load of money and gain some International favours too. You can do all of that with or as seems more likely, without the Russians. Let's be honest, for the next decade or two, the Russians are going to find it hard to even bend the steel they need, let alone build a working rocket, space station, or even Soyuz capsules.
What baby? It's "hobby" not "necessity" after all. (Score:2)
A few experiments to amuse ivory tower researchers are of nil real importance compared to the Ukraine war. Let's not pretend they are of overwhelming importance. We got along fine before them and everything is just hardware to be replaced sooner or later.
A few years more or less of ISS is a trifle and the tiny few who care can be disregarded along with their passions. It's easy to deal with Russophiles by running over them roughshod. They're free to field their own space program or if they're poor to buy ti
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Remember, we had a leader that went crazy and invaded countries, too. (Bush II)
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Next you're gonna say we should stop buying shit from China. Pfft.
Re: The US should abandon ISS and this is why: (Score:3)
Image of hole that occurred on Soyuz in December (Score:4, Interesting)
https://behindtheblack.com/beh... [behindtheblack.com]
From the article ...
Meanwhile, all communications with ISS have now been shifted to the private channels [twitter.com], so the public cannot hear them.
All these actions strongly suggest that both the Russians and Americans are now seriously considering the possibility of sabotage or damage to the coolant systems on all Russian spacecraft, before they leave the factory and are launched.
To clarify the situation, the image to the right shows all the spacecraft presently docked to ISS. Progress 82 is the spacecraft that experienced a leak in its coolant system on February 11th. Soyuz-MS22 experienced a leak in its coolant system in December. At the moment the only safe vehicle for returning the seven astronauts on ISS is Crew-5 Dragon, SpaceXs Endurance spacecraft. Should a major catastrophe occur requiring an immediate evacuation of the station, the plan right now is for five astronauts to come home on Endurance, and two Russians to come home on the damaged Soyuz. (The thinking is that having only two men on board will prevent too much of a temperature rise during the return to Earth because of the lack of its coolant system.)
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Image of the coolant hole with context, here: https://www.yahoo.com/entertai... [yahoo.com]
Image (Score:2)
A rescue plan? (Score:2)
Russian Cooling (Score:4, Funny)
In all fairness to Russia, cooling technology isn't really their strength. When they want to cool something they just open a door.
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That reminds me (Score:4, Funny)
In America, astronauts take leak in spacecraft.
In Russia, spacecraft take leak on you.
Maybe it is time (Score:2)
I recall the Starliner can hold more cargo, but can't find the source at the moment. If someone can cite/correct that it would be appreciated.
That being said, shit does happen in orbit. The Russian stuff has been pretty reliable to this point, and they pride themselves on that fact - so I imagine they will get it fixed and soon.
We have three solutions. But we might want to start shi
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It will be a while before Starliner will be certified for manned missions.
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It will be a while before Starliner will be certified for manned missions.
Apparently in April of this year. https://news.yahoo.com/starlin... [yahoo.com]
Russia at the end of their string (Score:2)
It seems that Russia has finally degraded to the point where it cannot build the machinery for its own splendid little war. They are resorting to just throwing waves of fodder at Ukraine positions unsupported by any mobile armor hoping to just overwhelm the defense.
So how are they supposed to keep going on an manned aerospace industry?
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I hesitated in making this same point a few hours back, only because it's such a complicated situation. It's possible that they would still invest properly in this while letting everything else fall apart. However, in my little bubble of minimal exposure, I really agree with you. Russia's infrastructure for their main (nearly exclusive?) flow of income - oil and gas - is falling apart. After the collapse of the soviet union it took a decade to refit and rebuild all the stuff that atrophied and broke - and t
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They are resorting to just throwing waves of fodder at Ukraine positions unsupported by any mobile armor hoping to just overwhelm the defense.
It's not clear that's happening. There are videos of infantryment being attacked, but at the same time Russia still has plenty of tanks.
Zombie Space Agency (Score:2)
The Russian space program has been the walking dead since the 1980s. They've been rolling forward the Soyuz with minimum possible updates since the 1960s. Bringing them into the ISS was a nice goodwill gesture back when it looked like Russia might finally join the community of nations as a democracy, but Putin has lit that promise on fire and has been gleefully pouring gasoline on it since he completed the Medvedev shuffle in 2012.
Since the start of the recent war, the rot has only accelerated along with th
Upgrade ISS once Starship is flying? (Score:1)