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When a small hole was discovered inside the International Space Station (ISS) last Wednesday, US and Russian authorities initially suspected a micrometeoroid attack. More than 170 million space debris circulates in the Earth's orbit and a collision with the ISS seems inevitable.
The authorities said last week that the leak had resulted in a slight drop in cabin pressure, but that the six astronauts currently on board the ISS are at no time in real danger.
A sealer was applied last Thursday and cabin pressure returned to normal.
But the fallout from the incident continued this week, after Russian officials who were later charged with examining the hole concluded that it had been drilled – potentially deliberately.
Even the possibility of human intervention could turn out explosive, given that the ISS is one of the latest joint projects between Moscow and Washington.
The space station team is currently composed of three Americans, two Russians and one German. Crew members arrive and depart using Russian capsules. the one who fled had arrived in June. The hole was discovered in a section of the ship that was not being used to transport the crew, but with the next departure to Earth planned for December, any interference could affect the operations of the space station .
The investigators did not specify whether they thought the hole had been drilled on Earth or in space, but the Russian space agency Roscosmos did not rule out the possibility of Sabotage.
"There have been several attempts to drill," Roscosmos president Dmitri Rogozin was quoted by Russian media sources as saying.
"We are checking the terrestrial version, but there is another version that we do not rule out: deliberate interference in space," Rogozin said.
This is not the first time that Russia speculates on a possible sabotage of its space operations.
Six years ago, Vladimir Popovkin, Rogozin's predecessor in this post, had suggested that foreign powers were at the origin of a series of spacecraft launching failures at l & # 39; era.
And this week, the former Russian astronaut turned MP Maxim Surayev has raised the possibility that the ISS hole was pierced by an astronaut who "might want to go home", even though he has recognized that a Russian production error could also be ruled out. "I wish God that it is a production defect, even though it is very sad too – there was nothing like it in the history of the Soyuz ships." Russia has indicated that it is currently verifying its space units under construction for similar defects.
In a statement sent by e-mail, NASA said Wednesday that it would "support the work of the commission, as the case may be," with reference to the Roscosmos inquiry committee.
"Our Russian partners have demonstrated their human and technological resilience many times over the history of their human space flight efforts, and we are confident that they will identify the cause of the leak," NASA said.
Posted by Washington Post.
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