The date is August, 2018, and several hundred miles above the earth, the Russian Soyuz spacecraft
docks with the International Space Station.
With the cancellation of the American Space Shuttle program, and a failure by Presidents
Bush and Obama to streamline the acquisition of a new space vehicle, now Russia is the
only agency in the world capable of reliably putting astronauts in space and bringing them
home again.
Every member nation of the International Space Station relies on Russia's Soyuz to ferry
their astronauts to and from the ISS, and the cost isn’t cheap.
For Russia’s Roscosmos space agency though, the Soyuz has been an economic boon, earning
them tens of millions of dollars per launch in seat fees.
The Soyuz itself is a decades old design hailing from the early Cold War, but still a very
capable and safe space vehicle.
Not just the final capsule that brings astronauts to the ISS and brings them home again, the
Soyuz vehicle is actually the entire series of components and rockets that make up the
total launch vehicle.
It's safety record is unmatched, and to date Russia's Soyuz space launch vehicle is the
most reliable ever created.
The only two deadly incidents involving a Soyuz in flight include a failure early in
its service history that saw a parachute fail to open properly, killing the lone cosmonaut
as the capsule impacted the earth at high speed.
The second incident remains the only fatalities in space, with three Cosmonauts killed when
a cabin vent valve accidentally opened after undocking from the Russian space station Salyut
1.
It should be noted that both these accidents occurred early in the Soyuz's service history,
and since then no fatalities have been suffered.
Despite these accidents though, the Soyuz system has still seen less fatalities and
accidents than the American space shuttle, perhaps not surprising given that the system
is relatively simple compared to the incredible complexity of the reusable shuttle.
This simplicity is what makes operating the Soyuz so cheap and cost effective for the
cash-strapped Russian space agency Roscosmos though, and also makes the Soyuz a hardy,
and very reliable spacecraft.
When the American Space Shuttle program ended, Soyuz was the only way to get astronauts to
and from the ISS, today costing the us about $83 million per seat.
Now several alternatives to Soyuz are nearing flight readiness, such as Space X’s Dragon
capsule and Boeing’s Starliner, yet for the immediate future mankind’s only way
to reach the stars lies with Russia and its Soyuz spacecraft.
Yet in that fateful August of 2018, the crew of the ISS discovered that there was something
very wrong with the space station.
Atmospheric pressure was slowly but steadily dropping as the station vented precious oxygen
into space.
If nothing was done, the international space station would be left without any air, and
the crew would die.
Immediately the crew aboard the station began isolating compartments with airtight emergency
doors, seeking to discover the source of the leak.
Eventually their hunt led them to the Soyuz capsule itself, docked to the station and
the astronaut's ticket home.
A deliberate and careful search of the spacecraft was then conducted, with every inch of it
scoured in search of the offending leak.
The astronauts soon discovered the cause- a 2 millimeter hole on one of the capsule's
walls, which perforated the outer skin of the craft and allowed the vacuum of space
to suck air out.
The hole was immediately sealed with a piece of special tape, and later a special epoxy
meant to be used in emergencies was used to successfully seal it until the spacecraft
returned to earth.
On the ground, both NASA, the ESA, and Roscosmos immediately began an investigation into the
possible cause of the hole, and initially the theory that a micrometeorite impact had
caused the hole was put forward.
Micrometeorite impacts are not uncommon in space, and are a dangerous but unavoidable
part of living in orbit.
Dust, rocky bits traveling across the solar system, and even man-made space debris routinely
intersects or orbits the earth, and sometimes a human spacecraft is in the way.
In 2012 a micrometeorite impacted one of the cupola windows on the ISS, leaving a sizable
gouge in the module's thick protective window panes.
The shutters which help protect the module's windows in an emergency were temporarily raised
as NASA evaluated the risk the impact posed.
The space shuttle itself was a victim of micrometeorites on several occasions, and once impacted one
of the forward facing windows, causing NASA officials to be concerned that the window
may develop a large crack during reentry and limit the pilot's visibility.
Today the threat man-made micrometeorites pose to spaceflight is growing, and NASA has
held many competitions for the public to present their solutions for space junk clean up.
If left out of control, the build up of space junk could eventually lead to a condition
known as Kessler Syndrome, a state where so much orbital junk crowds the earth that reaching
orbit is far too dangerous or impossible to attempt.
In that case, humanity would be stuck on the ground for decades, possibly even centuries
as gravity and friction with atmospheric molecules slowly decayed each piece of space junk’s
orbit.
Yet as the micrometeorite explanation was examined, it didn't seem to fit the bill.
Careful observation of photographs of the puncture clearly showed that the penetration
of the hull came from within, not from outside, making a micrometeorite impact impossible.
On even closer examination, the hole actually looked like it had been drilled mechanically,
and very purposefully to puncture through several inches of protective inner and outer
shell.
Additionally, what appear to be scratches made from a drill are apparent alongside the
hole, as if whoever drilled the hole was faltering in their attempt to actually drill it.
This raised serious red flags across the international space community, and specially within Roscosmos.
Theories were immediately raised, and one leading theory was of a mistake by the manufacturer.
Yet as many pointed out, the hole was so deliberate and completely punctured the thick hull, that
a simple mistake seems improbable.
Whoever drilled this hole did so with intent, and perhaps it could still have been a mistake-
perhaps an engineer misread a blueprint and drilled the hole believing it would serve
a later purpose.
If so though, then it brings into serious question the expertise of Russia's rocket
manufacturers, along with a whole host of red flags on the incompetence of both Russia's
manufacturers and its safety and quality control systems.
Even more troubling though is the theory that the hole was an act of deliberate sabotage-
someone, somewhere, had purposefully drilled that hole.
All agencies involved considered the possibility that sabotage had occurred either in space
or on the ground, and Russia's Roscosmos, a traditionally paranoid agency concerning
sabotage, feared the worst.
In time, the possibility that the hole was drilled in space was ruled out, and questions
began to turn towards the time the capsule spent on the surface.
The capsule had passed pre-flight pressurization tests, meaning that the hole must have been
filled in with glue which upon reaching orbit, had dried out in the vacuum of space and then
been sucked out, resulting in the ensuing air leak.
But is sabotage even likely?
Well, the obvious signs of a faltering hand behind whoever wielded the drill that caused
the hole, evidenced by the scour marks on the capsule wall next to the hole, could possibly
point to a saboteur who nervously, and quickly, created the hole while under pressure.
This likely means that the saboteur would not have been involved in the manufacturing
process, and likely carried out the deed either before or right after the vehicle was delivered
to Roscosmos.
Yet if this was an act of sabotage, then why was the hole so small?
With such a small diameter leak, it would have taken the ISS 18 days to vent all of
its air, and as we saw, it was detected long before that happened.
Whoever caused the hole must have known it would never succeed in killing the crew of
either the ISS or the Soyuz itself- if that was their goal.
Perhaps though, the goal was not to harm the crew, but rather to do what it did succeed
in doing: make the Russian space agency Roscosmos look very bad and embarrass it internationally.
Since the incident a year ago, the ESA and NASA have expressed extreme reservations about
continuing to use the Soyuz capsule, and the ESA is very much looking forward for America's
commercial space delivery platforms to officially come online.
For its part, Roscosmos has intimately investigated the matter, and in a press conference, publicly
announced that they discovered the cause, and the individual, who created the hole.
Mysteriously, and very frustratingly for American and European space professionals though, the
Russians are refusing to come forward with any details.
In fact, the head of Roscosmos stated that he would not be making any information available
as to the motivation behind the drilling of the hole on the Soyuz.
Some have pointed to possible sabotage by an American agent, after all Americans have
long complained of having to rely on another nation to get their astronauts into orbit
and back again.
If the Soyuz suddenly seemed unsafe to fly, or there were fears of Russian saboteurs,
then the American government would be pressured into finding a solution to the current lack
of an American space delivery vehicle.
Yet if this were true, then it's happening far too late, with participants in NASA's
commercial crew launch program all coming online soon with their own orbital crew delivery
vehicles.
Boeing's Starliner is expected to conduct an automated test of its capsule soon, and
Space X successfully ran a fully automated delivery to the ISS this past summer.
In the end we may never know what caused the hole on the Soyuz capsule, and it's unlikely
that Roscosmos or the Russian government will ever tell us.
All this secrecy hints at something devastatingly embarrassing for the Russian space agency,
but is it more than just an incompetent manufacturer?
Could the real problem be something as terrifying as purposeful sabotage within the only space
program in the world which can currently get astronauts safely up to, and back from orbit?
Could human lives be even right now at risk?
Given Russian secrecy, we may never know, though we hope that at least they have taken
steps to address this very critical issue.
Who do you think really caused the hole on the Soyuz?
Why won't Russia tell the world?
Would you feel safe with your country's astronauts flying aboard the Soyuz today?
Let us know in the comments!
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