Nasty surprise': Russia goes silent on mysterious drill hole in International Space Station
It was a tiny hole, drilled by hand then carefully concealed but it caused an international scandal — now Russia has admitted it knows what happened.
By Jamie Seidel | SEPTEMBER 30, 2019
A suspicious hole in a Soyuz spacecraft vented air from the International Space Station.
Now, it's the centre of a new rift between the United States and Russia.
It was only 2mm wide — but the hole had been carefully concealed. It had been plugged with a resin that slowly disintegrated in the cold dryness of space and was hidden in a corner, beneath a lining of insulation.
It set off alarms on Earth and in orbit as the International Space Station's (ISS's) atmosphere slowly vented into space.
A short time after it was discovered on August 29 last year, the recriminations began.
Moscow accused the US of deliberate sabotage.
NASA was dumbfounded.
Now, Russia's space agency — Roscosmos — says it has once and for all determined the cause of the mysterious, deliberate hole aboard the Soyuz MS-09 crew vehicle.
But it has been declared a state secret.
AIR ALARM
The first alarm sounded as the Expedition 56 crew aboard the ISS slept. Mission controllers on the ground detected a small drop in cabin pressure.
The six astronauts were under no immediate threat. So, they let them sleep.
Only once they woke were they given the task of scouring the walls of the 21-year-old space station in search of a pinprick-sized hole.
Was it a micrometeor? Was it a stress fracture? Was it component failure?
"The leak has been isolated to a hole about two millimetres in diameter in the orbital compartment, or upper section, of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft,” NASA officials said at the time.
"The crew are healthy and safe with weeks of air left in the International Space Station reserves," the European Space Agency added.
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