The International Space Station (ISS) has been hit by a micrometeorite. The ship is currently registering a temperature rise.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos on Friday acknowledged a “slight” rise in temperature aboard a spacecraft docked with the International Space Station (ISS), according to it without danger, two days after a leak potentially due to a micrometeorite impact .
“A number of tests” were performed on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, according to Roscosmos, “including measuring the temperature in the spacecraft’s living space.” It is now 30°C, said the Russian space agency on Telegram. “This is a slight change in temperature,” continued Roscosmos, which claims that this situation “is not critical for the operation of the equipment and the comfort of the station crew”.
Soyuz MS-22 has a major coolant leak while docked on the ISS.
No EVA is possible at this time and there is probably contamination of the station’s instruments and optics.pic.twitter.com/lFKVVzGJvJ— Spatial Techniques – French Space Guy (@TechSpatiales) December 15, 2022
But the challenge is to determine whether the ship will still be able to bring two Russian cosmonauts and their American colleague Frank Rubio back to Earth, whose mission is scheduled to end in March 2023. The temperature in the ship is currently maintained “at medium of the Russian segment of the ISS,” Roscosmos said.
“Acceptable limits”
The Soyuz MS-22 leak came on Wednesday when Russian cosmonauts Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin were preparing for a spacewalk, which was ultimately canceled. The source of the leak was identified as coming from the Soyuz cooling system, and the liquid was presumably coolant. Images broadcast by the American space agency had clearly shown a jet of white particles escaping abundantly into space from the ship. “Most of the fluid had escaped” by Thursday, NASA said on Friday.
“The temperatures and humidity inside the Soyuz spacecraft (…) are within acceptable limits”, also reassured the American agency. According to NASA, a “successful” test of the spacecraft’s engines was carried out on Friday, but other verifications remain in progress. A spacewalk scheduled for Monday was pushed back to Wednesday to allow the station’s Canadian robotic arm to be used to “provide more exterior images of the Soyuz on Sunday,” NASA said.
In addition to the crew who arrived on board the Soyuz, four other people are currently on the ISS: the Russian Anna Kikina, the Americans Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, and the Japanese Koichi Wakata. They traveled with an American spaceship from SpaceX. The ISS is one of the few fields of cooperation still in progress between Moscow and Washington since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, launched on February 24, and the Western sanctions that followed.