​On Monday evening, American astronaut Jasmine Mogbeli aboard the International Space Station in the Cupola module (equipped with portholes through which astronauts can look outside the station) reported to the Houston control center that she noticed a coolant leak from the Russian Nauka module. She was sent to visualize the leak, which was identified by NASA from images obtained by cameras located outside the station.

This is just another episode in a series of unfortunate events aboard the International Space Station involving Russian equipment or vehicles.

The Soyuz MS-22 capsule and the Progress MS-21 cargo ship experienced similar, perhaps even more spectacular, malfunctions on December 15, 2022, and February 11, 2023, respectively. As a result of this malfunction, the Soyuz MS-22 capsule was forced to return to Earth without a crew, thus extending the mission of astronauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitriy Petelin and Francisco Rubio for another 6 months (so Rubio became the American who spent the longest continuous period in orbit – 371 days).

Analysis of the Soyuz MS-22 capsule after landing showed that if there was a crew in it, then their journey in the conditions of the corresponding accident (problems with temperature control after the loss of coolant) would have been dangerous and uncomfortable for the three cosmonauts who were supposed to return home on ” Soyuz MS-22″.

In both cases, Roscosmos claims that the cause of both incidents was an impact with an external object. Most likely, according to Roscosmos, it is a micrometeoroid, because if the collision was recognized to have been caused by orbital debris, it would not put Russia’s November 15, 2021 ballistic test against a satellite in a favorable light, which would have resulted in thousands of new fragments, some all still in orbit.

The “Science” module was not spared: immediately after launch on July 21, 2021, telemetry was lost with it and problems with the module’s main engine were detected. A few days later, the module finally docked with the orbital outpost, but only a few hours after this event, to everyone’s surprise, the module’s engines fired up, causing the entire space station to rotate around its center of mass until the Nauka tanks deployed . were empty.

The Nauka module has two emitters: one main, located outside the module before launch, and the other, an auxiliary one, launched in 2010 by the space shuttle Atlantis (mission STS-132) and until this year stored in the Russian module Rassvet. It was installed near Nauka in April this year as part of extra-ship activities of two Russian cosmonauts.

Roscosmos reported that the cause of the leak on Monday evening was a short circuit in the secondary radiator, and the operation of the Nauka module is not currently in danger, as the main radiator is operating at rated power and is able to provide the necessary cooling. to the module. It is not yet clear whether this event will affect further off-ship activities (the next one is scheduled for Thursday, October 12).

NASA said that the astronauts on board are safe and their lives are not threatened by this new malfunction.

Science is the last module attached to the International Space Station after a delay of about 14 years. Russia initially announced that it was also developing the NEM module, but later said that it would no longer be launched on the ISS, but would most likely be used for Russia’s future space station (currently in the design stage).

The International Space Station is a 400-ton orbital complex that has had a permanent staff since 2000. The assembly and operation of the International Space Station cost about 150 billion dollars, perhaps the most expensive project of mankind. NASA, along with other partners in the project (Roscosmos, ESA, JAXA and CSA) will leave the International Space Station in 2031, when it will plunge destructively into the atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.

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Photo source: profimediaimages.ro