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On Friday, the Russian state media TASS reported that someone has drilled a hole in the hull of the International Space Station, fueling the conspiracy theories that have arisen in recent weeks.
On August 30, the ISS crew repaired a small hole, initially attributed to a micrometeoroid that was puncturing a Soyuz MS-09 capsule moored to the ISS. Since the reparation, the theories accusing NASA astronauts of sabotaging the capsule have been raging in the Russian media, fed by anonymous sources in the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
The rumors had become serious enough to warrant a face-to-face meeting between NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine and Roscosmos general manager Dmitry Rogozin, which will take place on 10 October.
On Thursday, NASA and Roscosmos issued a joint press release announcing the meeting, which found a conciliatory and diplomatic tone. Rogozine has publicly condemned rumors and theories that NASA astronauts have punctured the hole to force the emergency evacuation of a sick colleague, but rumors published by TASS From inside Roscosmos, one can see new evidence that someone has drilled the shell of the MS-09 capsule, damaging the meteoric shield that surrounds it.
"Traces of drilling have been found not only inside the living compartment of the spaceship, but also on the screen of the anti-meteorite shield that covers the spaceship from the outside and is installed at 15 millimeters from the pressure hull "industry source said TASS. According to this individual, cosmonauts aboard the ISS had inspected the 2-millimeter hole with an endoscope and had found evidence that a drill had damaged the shield, installed on Earth. Presumably, this information comes from the ongoing investigation conducted by Roscosmos on the issue, although NASA and Roscosmos have stated that no details would be released before the end of the investigation.
in the TASS history, another anonymous source said the module Soyuz MS-09 had been photographed after it was assembled, which seems to add credibility to the idea that the hole was drilled in space. But the source also admitted that there had been a period of three months after its assembly during which the hole could have been drilled while the craft was on Earth.
'When Soyuz MS-09 just arrived at the final assembly workshop, it was photographed in detail. No holes and no sign of drilling … were found. The spaceship was drilled later, when it was completely assembled. " TASS reports the source said.
TASS He added that he could not confirm any of this information at the time of publication.
This report still shakes the water around the ISS leak, which was quite minor so that ISS crew member, Alexander Gerst, covered it. with his finger until the crew develops a more permanent epoxy patch. Although Rogozin remains the diplomatic face of Roscosmos, going so far as publicly condemning the rumors, those behind the scenes seem determined to broadcast a version of the events in which NASA astronauts broke through the hole to force an emergency evacuation.
This theory, that the Russian media Kommersant reports that the Roscosmos commission is considering a major possibility, alleging that NASA did not want to pay for a new Soyuz module. Since an evacuation should involve both astronauts and cosmonauts, this scenario would theoretically keep NASA at the cost of about $ 85 million from a new spacecraft. .
No evacuation took place, however, and the leak was so minor that ground control in Moscow and Houston agreed to let the ISS crew spend a full night before finding and repairing the escape of pressure. But even with the physical escape corrected, it seems that information leaks continue to cause headaches to NASA.
The Soyuz spacecraft is produced by the Russian company RKK Energia and is the only spacecraft model that currently transports humans between Earth and the International Space Station. Several private companies, including Boeing and SpaceX, are currently developing capsules capable of transporting astronauts to the ISS, both companies planning to deliver a product in 2019. An Orion spacecraft operated by NASA and ESA , under construction at Lockheed Martin and Airbus. , is also in development.
Regardless of how unleashed this diplomatic mess, the United States will only have time to transport its astronauts to the ISS without the help of Russia.
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