A Russian spacecraft started leaking uncontrollably on Wednesday night - Ars Technica

ISS Livestream —

After 3 hours Wednesday nighttime the leak remained ongoing.

Eric Berger - Dec 15, 2022 3:58 americium UTC

Enlarge / A presumption of the aft extremity of the Soyuz spacecraft leaking what appears to beryllium ammonia connected Wednesday night.

NASA TV

A Russian spacewalk was canceled astatine the past infinitesimal connected Wednesday nighttime erstwhile a spacecraft attached to the International Space Station unexpectedly sprang a ample leak.

Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin were dressed successful spacesuits, with the airlock depressurized, erstwhile formation controllers told them to standby portion the leak successful a Soyuz spacecraft was investigated. The spacewalk was subsequently called disconnected soon earlier 10pm ET (03:00 UTC Thursday).

The leak appears to person originated successful an outer cooling loop located astatine the aft extremity of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. Public affairs serviceman Rob Navias, who was commentating connected the spacewalk for NASA Television, characterized the spacecraft arsenic leaking "fairly substantially." Video of the leak showed particles streaming continuously from the Soyuz, a alternatively singular sight. This was apt ammonia, which is utilized arsenic a spacecraft coolant, though Russian officials person not confirmed this.

At nary clip were immoderate of the unit members connected the abstraction presumption successful danger, including Prokopyev and Petelin, their chap cosmonaut Anna Kikina; NASA astronauts Frank Rubio, Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada; and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata. The leak was outer to the station, not wrong the orbiting laboratory.

However, the leak does rise questions astir the viability of the Soyuz spacecraft, which is the thrust backmost to Earth for Prokopyev, Petelin, and NASA's Frank Rubio. They launched to the abstraction presumption backmost successful September connected committee this Soyuz vehicle, and are owed to instrumentality to Earth adjacent spring. After 3 hours Monday nighttime the leak remained ongoing, showing nary motion of abating.

The Soyuz is simply a hardy spacecraft, truthful it is plausible that determination whitethorn not beryllium immoderate interaction connected its quality to undock from the abstraction presumption and instrumentality to Earth. However, if Russian engineers—and those from NASA, considering that Rubio volition beryllium connected board—determine determination is an issue, a replacement Soyuz would request to beryllium flown up to the station. Soyuz vehicles bash person the capableness to motorboat and dock autonomously. However, it would mean that, until specified clip arsenic the replacement spacecraft arrived, the 3 unit members would person nary exigency flight vehicle.

Enlarge / Three hours aft the leak was initially detected, it remained ongoing.

NASA TV

The different 4 astronauts connected committee the presumption flew up connected a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft successful October. That conveyance cannot accommodate 7 radical for a instrumentality to Earth.

Given the agelong duration of the leak, NASA is besides apt to person concerns astir the interaction of each that ammonia connected abstraction presumption surfaces and those of different docked vehicles. Much of the ammonia would astir apt boil disconnected the aboveground of the hardware implicit time, but it volition surely complicate operations arsenic the US abstraction bureau works toward conducting a spacewalk of its ain connected Dec. 19 to instal caller star arrays.