About that hole in the space station

[82_28]

This is curious as hell.

That hole in the International Space Station was caused by a drill, not a meteorite, and the search is on for the culprit

Last week, astronauts aboard the International Space Station woke to an alarm warning them of a pretty serious situation. The space station was losing pressure, which means a leak had formed somewhere on the spacecraft. With a finite amount of breathable air, the race was on to find the location of the leak and do something to fix it.

It wasn’t long before a tiny hole was discovered in the Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft docked to the space station. The tiny opening was thought to be the result of damage from a micrometeorite, which isn’t unheard of, and the crew quickly came up with a plan to repair it. Now, days later, Russian space agency Roscosmos says the hole wasn’t made by Mother Nature, but by a person with a drill, and tensions are high.

The images of the hole are pretty damning. It doesn’t look much like the result of a fast-moving space rock, and certainly appears to be drilled. There even appears to be marks on the paint-covered metal from where a drill bounced along the surface before finding purchase and slicing its way through.

So, who did it?

As ScienceAlert reports, this whodunit has taken a seriously wild turn over the past day or two. No, this isn’t a Clue-like scenario where one of the six members of the current ISS crew is the baddie; Roscosmos believes the hole was drilled in the spacecraft prior to it ever leaving Earth, and they’re searching for the individual in the manufacturing process who is responsible for it.

Multiple unnamed sources have spoken with Russian media outlet RIA Novosti and hinted that an internal investigation at the corporation that builds the spacecraft, Energia, has already yielded results. According to those sources, the person has been identified and apparently explained that the hole was drilled by accident and not with malicious intent. A fabric seal was placed over the hole to hide the mistake, and it lasted a couple of months before eventually breaking open in space.

No word yet on what kind of punishment, if any, the individual will suffer, but sending a manned spacecraft into the sky with a hole in the side is obviously a pretty serious misstep.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hole-interna ... 34282.html

[chump]

https://youtu.be/a9jt2fIwhY8
-

[DrEvil]

Hadfield used it as an example of a typical micro-meteorite/orbital debris hole. Specifically, the image is from the Solar Max satellite that was launched in 1980, and since all NASA images are in the public domain someone decided to use it for an album cover 34 years later. Source: Hadfield's twitter feed.

Oh, and the Earth is flat and Ivanka is transgender, according to your impeccable source.

[82_28]

Russia suggests sabotage on the International Space Station

When a tiny hole was discovered inside a spacecraft attached to the International Space Station (ISS) last Wednesday, U.S. and Russian authorities initially suspected a micrometeoroid strike. More than 170 million pieces of space debris circle in Earth orbit, and collisions are inevitable.

Authorities said last week that the leak in the Russian-made Soyuz capsule had led to a small drop in cabin pressure, but the six ISS crew members were at no point in real danger. A sealant was applied Thursday, and cabin pressure returned to normal.

But the incident's fallout continued this week, after Russian officials who were subsequently tasked with examining the hole concluded that it had been drilled — potentially deliberately. Even the possibility of human interference could prove to be explosive, given that the ISS is one of the last remaining joint projects between Moscow and Washington.

The station’s crew is currently composed of three Americans, two Russians and one German. Crew members arrive and depart using the Russian capsules; the leaking one had arrived in June. The hole was discovered in a section of the ship not used to transport the crew members, but with the next departure to Earth scheduled for December, any interference could have ripple effects on the space station’s operations.

Investigators did not specify whether they believed the hole was drilled on Earth or in space, but Russia's Roscosmos space agency did not exclude the possibility of sabotage.

“There were several attempts at drilling,” Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin was quoted as saying by Russian media outlets.

“We are checking the Earth version. But there is another version that we do not rule out: deliberate interference in space,” Rogozin said.

It's not the first time that Russia is speculating about possible sabotage of its space operations.

Six years ago, Rogozin’s predecessor in the job, Vladimir Popovkin, suggested that foreign powers were responsible for spacecraft launch failures at the time.

And this week, Russian cosmonaut-turned-lawmaker Maxim Surayev raised the possibility that the hole may have been drilled by a station crew member who “might want to go home,” even though he acknowledged that a Russian production mistake could also not be ruled out. “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.” Russia said it was checking its spacecraft units in construction for similar defects.

In an emailed statement, NASA said on Wednesday that it “will support the commission's work as appropriate,” referring to Roscosmos' investigatory committee.

"Our Russian partners have demonstrated their human and technological resilience many times throughout the history of their efforts in human spaceflight. We are confident they will identify the cause of the leak,” NASA said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... 5d07c5920a

[Blue]

I blame VKontakte. Just like all the other social medias are driving people to distraction while working, driving, walking. I actually watched a woman walk into a wall the other day while looking at her phone. But to cover the hole with a fabric seal sounds like a special kind of stupid. It happens in manufacturing, I've seen it.

[82_28]

I blame VKontakte. Just like all the other social medias are driving people to distraction while working, driving, walking. I actually watched a woman walk into a wall the other day while looking at her phone. But to cover the hole with a fabric seal sounds like a special kind of stupid. It happens in manufacturing, I've seen it.

It's actually the only way once in a continual state of being underway -- orbit. The ISS is not going to stop orbiting, but I believe that actual Soyuz capsule is the way back home right now. That is why it is attached. I've read and seen some sci fi (well, hell the Martian) and the use of duct tape on Apollo 13 where that shit comes in handy in times of need. Some book I read years ago had a micrometeorite hit the habitat (hab) and there were all these little tape things scattered about the complex and they knew where to fly up to, to apply the seal.

[Blue]

Yeah, but it sounds like the fabric seal was not applied by the astronauts but by the person on Earth who made the mistake (or sabotage) in order to cover it up. They had to know it wouldn't last long. People can be careless and when faced with losing a good job they often panic and hide their mistakes.

[DrEvil]

I think this is a case of someone fucking up and being terrified of losing their job. It's not like it would be the first time the Russian space program had problems like this, that's why they brought in Rogozin in May this year to clean house and get things back on track. It speaks more to their corporate culture than anything else, and the irony is that this would have been easy to fix if the person responsible had told someone about it and not just slapped some epoxy on it.

[Elvis]

I lean to sabotage. I'm having difficulty picturing a scenario in which someone would just accidentally drill a sloppy-looking (slanted?) hole in that spot. The skip marks (and angle of the hole?) suggest to me that the driller was not accustomed to using a power drill.

[82_28]

Maybe those skip marks mean it was done in space. Everything floating around.

[Elvis]

Maybe those skip marks mean it was done in space. Everything floating around.

Now that you mention it, if you pushed the drill against the panel, you'd just float away backwards, unless you had something behind you, or you held on to an achor with your other hand. Could get awkward and skip the bit. They must have a way of dealing with that. But how often to they drill holes aboard the spacelab? Is there a special Space Drill?

[82_28]

The Space Drill Used By NASA Astronauts
The primary tool of the 21st century spacewalker.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/ ... stronauts/