"Roskosmos" still has not established the cause of the hole in the casing of the "Union"

The expert commission of the state corporation Roscosmos tohas not yet established the cause of the hole in the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft, detected by the crew of the International Space Station on August 30, 2018. Recall that at that time an air leak was installed in one of the modules of the ISS. Inspection of the entire station revealed the presence of a hole in the Russian spacecraft, which arose as a result of some external mechanical effect, most likely a drill (the very first assumption). The hole itself was discovered by German cosmonaut Alexander Gerst.

Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and SergeyOn December 11, Prokopiev went into outer space to take samples of materials from the surface of the Soyuz domestic compartment. The work took more than seven hours. The astronauts had to open the lining of the ship with a knife and scissors for metal. A little later, when changing the crew of the ISS, the samples were delivered to Earth on the same ship, after which they were transferred to the investigators for analysis.

According to the latest data, state corporation“Roskosmos” has not yet appealed to the competent authorities to initiate a criminal case in connection with the appearance of a hole from a drill in the household compartment of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft, Roskosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin told reporters. According to the head of the state corporation, there is still very little evidence for this.

"For the final conclusions of the evidencenot enough, even those that were collected when the astronauts went into outer space. Perhaps additional experiments in orbit will be required, ”Interfax quotes Rogozin.

How exactly did the hole in the Russianmodule - a mystery. Among the versions of the appearance on the Soyuz spacecraft were a manufacturing defect, intentional damage to the skin by an American astronaut, a collision with a micrometeorite and space junk (the latter is unlikely since the hole type indicates that it was done from the inside).

RSC Energia Internal Commission (enterprise,where the Soyuz ships are made) could not establish the cause in the technological chain on Earth, therefore in the middle of September Roscosmos formed a special commission.

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