ISS air leak....

[Dr Mordrid]

At first billed as an MMOD event (micrometeoroid/orbital debris) impacting Soyuz MS-09, it has now been confirmed that some Ivan in the RKK Energia factory misakenly drilled a hole in the hull of the vehicle's Orbital Module (a small habitat), plugged it with glue then this glue came loose while it was docked to ISS.

Easy enough to patch the hole, but the poo's stil hitting the fan.

NASA will be getting more serious about turning the crewed test flights of SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Boeing's Starliner into full operational missions.

Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin created a firestorm when he intimated the damage could have been done at ISS, meaning by the Russian Cosmonauts. That interview got pulled.

Russia has opened an inquiry.

NASA ASAP, their safety advisory panel, is 100% going to take this up.

Congress? You betcha!

[Dr Mordrid]

Chris B - NSF@NASASpaceflight
ISS Leak summary:

First thought was MMOD strike.

Then NASA released pics. Lots of people: "Hmmm, doesn't look like MMOD". NASA deleted the photos.

Top Russian news site RIA NOVOSTI reported - via sources but apparently confirmed by Mr. Rogozin - it was a drill hole. pic.twitter.com/520kHK0TMc
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The hole has been repaired to the point it's no longer a problem (the crew was never in any risk). However, the implications are obvious. I don't have any new info and NASA is yet to react, but that's where things stand today.
1:52 PM - Sep 3, 2018

[MultimediaMan]

Throw the "engineer" into the Gulag for re-education on how to drill an F-ing hole. You can see where the idiot let the drill bit skip along the bracket cover. I'll bet there was something in front of the bracket he was trying to attach. Ooopski, Komrade...here let us use a little glue to plug the leak (Hell, aluminized, HVAC tape would have worked), but NASA took the $500 route using Kapton tape and Epoxy... Good old JB Weld would probably have worked better.

[Dr Mordrid]

High Temperature JB Weld is good to about 1500°C, and should be in every vehicle.

NASA needs to quit playing games and get Crew Dragon and Starliner certified ASAP. After that, get BFS (all versions) and Dream Chaser into the fleet as they go live. There's also a vehicle coming from Blue Origin.

Redundancy is good.

[Dr Mordrid]

And here comes the finger-pointing and paranoia,

https://phys.org/news/2018-09-russia-space-station-leak-deliberate.html

Russia says space station leak could be deliberate sabotage

Russia launched checks Tuesday after its space chief said an air leak on the International Space Station last week could have been deliberate sabotage.

Space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin said the hole detected Thursday in a Russian space craft docked at the orbiting station was caused by a drill and could have been done deliberately, either back on Earth or by astronauts in space.

Astronauts used tape to seal the leak after it caused a small loss of pressure that was not life-threatening.

"There were several attempts at drilling," Rogozin said late Monday in televised comments.

He added that the drill appeared to have been held by a "wavering hand."

"What is this: a production defect or some premeditated actions?" he asked.

"We are checking the Earth version. But there is another version that we do not rule out: deliberate interference in space."

A commission will seek to identify the culprit by name, Rogozin said, calling this a "matter of honour" for Russia's Energiya space manufacturing company that made the Soyuz.

'Not a meteorite'

Previously Rogozin had said the hole in the side of the Soyuz ship used to ferry astronauts was most likely caused from outside by a tiny meteorite.

"We have already ruled out the meteorite version," Rogozin said late Monday.

A Russian MP who is a former cosmonaut suggested that a psychologically disturbed astronaut could have done it to force an early return home.

"We're all human, and anyone might want to go home, but this method is really low," Maxim Surayev of President Vladimir Putin's ruling party, told RIA Novosti state news agency,

"If a cosmonaut pulled this strange stunt—and that can't ruled out— it's really bad," said Surayev, who spent two stints on the ISS.

"I wish to God that this is a production defect, although that's very sad, too—there's been nothing like this in the history of Soyuz ships."

The hole is in a section of the Soyuz ship that will not be used to carry astronauts back to Earth.

A space industry source told TASS state news agency that the spacecraft could have been damaged during testing at Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan after passing initial checks and the mistake was then hastily covered up.

"Someone messed up and then got scared and sealed up the hole," the source speculated, but then the sealant "dried up and fell off" when the Soyuz reached the ISS.

Energiya will carry out checks for possible defects on all Soyuz ships and Progress unmanned ships used for cargo at its production site outside Moscow and at Baikonur cosmodrome, RIA Novosti reported Tuesday, citing a space industry source.
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