World News | Russian space capsule leak may have been caused by micrometeorite

MOSCOW, Dec. 15 (AP) — A coolant leak from a Russian capsule attached to the International Space Station may have been caused by a micrometeorite impact, Russian space officials said Thursday.

Both Russian space company Roscosmos and NASA said the incident did not pose any danger to the space station crew.

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Veteran cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, director of the Russian space agency’s human spaceflight program, said the coolant leak in the Soyuz MS-22 capsule may have been caused by a meteorite hitting one of its radiators. Krikalev said in a statement that the failure could affect the performance of the capsule’s cooling system, but would not endanger the crew.

A coolant leak prompted two Russian cosmonauts to abort a planned spacewalk earlier in the day.

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Krikalev said Russian flight controllers were continuing to assess the situation and track temperature indicators aboard the Soyuz, but stressed that “there were no other changes in the parameters of the Soyuz spacecraft and the space station, so there was no threat to the crew.”

“NASA and Roscosmos will continue to work together to determine next steps based on ongoing analysis,” NASA said. “The crew on the space station is safe and there is no danger during the spill.”

Just earlier on Thursday, Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin were preparing to venture outside the space station for a planned spacewalk , experts on the ground saw a stream of fluid and particles, as well as pressure drops across instruments, in live video from space from the Soyuz capsule. Prokopyev, Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio arrived at the International Space Station in September in a capsule that served as a lifeboat for the crew.

They are joined by four other crew members currently at the space outpost – NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Kasada, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Koichi Wakata and Roscosmos Anna Chikina. (Associated Press)

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