The story is most embarrassing for the two Russian and American national space agencies which, despite great tensions, worrying technical hiccups and threats of divorce, continue to work hand in hand in the current orbital destinies of the Space Station. international.
Ars Technica thus reports that Roscosmos could seek to prosecute a NASA astronaut for a strange case which arose in August 2018 and in which a hole in a Soyuz MS-09 module was discovered and had to be urgently filled with epoxy.
The Russian space agency would have gathered enough evidence to forward it to the local justice and overwhelm Serena Auñón-Chancellor. According to Roscosmos, she would be the author of the said hole, with a width of 2 millimeters, discovered in the spacecraft then moored to the ISS and in which Auñón-Chancellor, accompanied by Russian Sergey Prokopyev and Alexander Gerst of ESA , had traveled a few weeks earlier.
Since August 2018, theories have been rife as to who or what could have drilled this small hole which, without the prompt intervention of the astronauts, could have depressurized the entire station in two weeks.
Cluedo spatial
A micro-meteorite or space debris were quickly eliminated: the error could therefore only be human, and potentially very embarrassing for Roscomos. But while some independent Russian media initially blamed the latter and a manufacturing defect, rumors quickly arose within the Putin government that an angry NASA astronaut ended up take out his drill.
In an article published in the spring of 2021, the state agency TASS gave substance to these rumors and accused Serena Auñón-Chancellor of having suffered a nervous breakdown in orbit, after suffering a serious venous problem, and of ‘having decided to drill the hole to speed up his return to Earth.
Another theory has been advanced by the most recent article by RIA Novosti which reports on the Roscosmos investigation: this time it is the failure of a love affair with another crew member who would be responsible for the crisis of Serena Auñón-Chancellor and her sudden passion for small holes .
At Ars Technica, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson brushed aside these rumors and accusations, renewing his full support for Serena Auñón-Chancellor.
He can do this with all the more confidence since ground control in Houston has clear and solid information as to the position of his astronauts at the time the hole was made: they were not near the Soyuz MS-09 module, and the information has long been in the hands of Roscosmos.
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