Leaky Soyuz and Delays for Boeing and SpaceX Could Dig American Astronauts – Quartz

Flight controllers monitoring the atmosphere of the International Space Station detected a slight steady pressure drop on 29 August. At the time, the six astronauts on board slept. The controllers did not wake them right away – the station would not run out of air for 18 days.

Once awake, the astronauts discovered a 2-millimeter hole inside the Soyuz spacecraft, which carried the latest expedition about 402 km from the station in June. (Of course, the hole was behind the toilet.) At first, the cause was supposed to be a micrometeoroid or other space debris, the scourge of human spaceflights in low orbit.

But the breach seems to have been caused by the breakthrough of a Russian-made technician, who has crossed the surface of the spacecraft. These types of quality control issues with the Soyuz – the only way for astronauts to travel to the ISS – will put additional pressure on Boeing's and SpaceX's delayed efforts to fly astronauts for NASA.

Instead of signaling the problem – which might have required costly and time consuming rebuilding – the technician apparently covered the hole with a patch, which finally gave way.

Cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev managed to repair the hole with gauze and epoxy, an effective temporary solution. Fortunately, the breach is located in a part of the spacecraft that is dropped before it returns to Earth – if it was in the segment where the astronauts were, the situation would be much more serious.

Dimitri Rogozine, the robust and aggressive leader of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, is the target of US sanctions even though he now heads American astronauts into orbit. Rogozin promised to get to the bottom of things. "Now it is essential to see the reason, to learn the name of the one who is responsible for it," he said. "And we will discover, without fail."

Highs and lows

"Despite the incredible capacity and robust designs, the production of Russian space technology has always suffered from quality problems," said Mark Albrecht, a US Space Policy Officer and former leader of a Lockheed Martin partnership. Proton rocket, built by another company; The Soyuz has a long history of reliability, with no failures on 90 flights since 1983.

An investigation into the Soyuz hole will include a careful examination of the assembly of this spacecraft to ensure that it can still carry astronauts in October, as well as the spaceship that will launch a new crew of two Russians and one American shortly thereafter. If problems are suspected with either spacecraft, this could force the ISS crew to return to Earth prematurely, as the station must maintain a reliable "lifeboat" for its six passengers.

As the United States still have at least nine months to be able to transport more astronauts to the station using a new spacecraft built by SpaceX and Boeing, the future of the station remains in the hands of the Russians and Soyuz. "Our Russian partners have demonstrated their human and technological resilience many times over the history of their efforts in the field of manned spaceflight," said a spokesman for NASA in Quartz. "International Space Station partners all participate in several exams before each major station activity to assess and ensure the safety of all crew members."

Even in the absence of errant drill holes, astronauts have trouble getting into orbit. In July, government auditors warned that SpaceX and Boeing may run out of time before a planned Soyuz flight in November 2019, the last one with the Americans on board. NASA executives managed to postpone this flight until January 2020 and also plan to use test flights of new vehicles in 2019 to transport additional astronauts to the station for missions to long term. out of the station for months.

The cabin crew

NASA officials told listeners that the ISS could not operate without the astronauts on board. This is largely because the $ 150 billion station's function is to keep humans alive so they can conduct research projects. Kevin Metrocavage, NASA's director of operations for the ISS, describes the station as both a complex vehicle like a plane and a house.

"You change the batteries in your smoke detectors, you change the equipment, you have filters … you change the toiletries, which must be kept sterile and handled regularly," Metrocavage told Quartz. "Trouble shooting is inevitable; we have equipment failures and leaks.

But when it comes to maintaining the station's position in space, "really everything can be done from the ground," he says. "We want the crew to focus on research."

The real problem with an empty or under-equipped station is not that it can fall from the sky, but that it would be a colossal waste. In fact, ISS astronauts are heavily programmed, acting as lab technicians for research projects (often themselves), exercising to maintain their health, repairing and maintaining the station, installing equipment and .

The vehicles designed by SpaceX and Boeing are welcome to NASA, in part because they promise to keep four US astronauts on duty at once, instead of three, increasing the amount of work that can be done on the NASA. station.

So, if American astronauts are short of time, can cosmonauts perform their tasks alone? "I think it would be difficult for us to operate without them or for them to operate without us without further training," says Metrocavage. "Let's hope this is never a question we have to answer."