Roscosmos made the final decision on the descent to Earth of the damaged Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft

The Soyuz MS-2022 manned spacecraft, damaged in December 22, will return to Earth autonomously without cosmonauts, the decision was made by the Roscosmos state commission following the advice of chief designers. This was announced by the head of the state corporation Yuri Borisov.

The stay on the ISS of Russian cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, as well as NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio, is being extended, the Soyuz MS-22 manned spacecraft will go to Earth without a crew. They will be followed by the Soyuz MS-23 manned spacecraft, which will be launched on February 20 in unmanned mode. It was previously planned that a crew consisting of Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara would go to the ISS on the new Soyuz. They were supposed to start on March 16th.

On December 15, there was a depressurization of the external contour of the radiator of the thermal control system of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. The version of technical damage to the radiator during manufacture is not confirmed. It has been experimentally proven that damage to the radiator pipeline occurred as a result of a meteoroid impact. Hole diameter - less than 1 mm

- says the message of the Russian Space Agency.

On Tuesday, January 10, a council of chief designers was held at RSC Energia, where the issue of crew return from the ISS was discussed, taking into account the technical condition of the Soyuz MS-22. As a result, several recommendations were issued on the basis of which the state commission made an appropriate decision.

The depressurization of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft was noticed on December 15, 2022, when Russian cosmonauts were preparing for a spacewalk.

Comments

[evgen1221]

But it’s not better to tow it away into space, dump it tighter on the moon, in the future it may be for spare parts or as a museum for space archaeologists. That again the earth is littered with debris.

[Wedmak]

Not better. And it's far from easier. In general, he will not fly to the moon with all his desire.

[credo]

Sometimes doubts creep in about the reality of the causes of external influence on the ISS, leading to emergency situations, and the dubious need to allow foreigners from countries unfriendly to us to the ISS.

As if by chance, more and more problems arise on the ISS, and the space results of the activities of various companies from the United States are increasingly achieving success.

Strange however.

[Wedmak]

We cannot prevent the United States from going there, part of the station belongs to them. The station itself is old, failures have already become more frequent. That's why we decided to make our own.

[Two]

The toilet, I remember, refused from the striped ones, and there were critically few diapers ...

[Pantsuy]

Quote: Dos

The toilet, I remember, refused from the striped ones, and there were critically few diapers ...

There were not enough diapers, but other hygiene items. Since there was one American citizen in the crew, who, apparently, was used to drowning them in the toilet.

[setter]

Sometimes doubts creep in about the reality of the causes of external influence on the ISS

This is from ignorance. If you take a little interest in the question, if only for the sake of defeating your own ignorance, the picture will turn out to be completely different.

An image of an orbital debris hole taken in the panel of the US Solar Max satellite.

Hubble Solar Panel.

[nickname7]

As if by chance, more and more problems arise on the ISS

Do you believe in evil spirits?
The main module is located in the center and other multi-ton modules are docked to it. The side modules create vertical and horizontal loads on the middle, causing the metal to crack.
It was necessary to mount a truss around the perimeter to relieve stress from the center.

and the space results of the activities of various companies from the United States are increasingly achieving success.

The difference in the goal-setting of the Russian Federation seeks to sterilize money in securities, and the states invest capital in the real sector, including space. And you have to believe in the unclean.

[kenpachi]

Well, yes, the test of the rocket in space-1408 and the subsequent resulting cloud of debris have absolutely nothing to do with it.

[flyer]

The cosmos belongs to the romantics, but there are no romantics among officials.

[Lomaster]

The materiel must be pulled up) The manned Soyuz is a controlled descent vehicle - a capsule. She does not burn, but sits on a parachute. But the instrumental-aggregate and living compartments partially burn out in the atmosphere, and the remains are flooded in the burial area in the Pacific Ocean. Therefore, during a regular descent, no space pollution occurs. But if left in space, then this fool with a mass of almost 7 tons will turn into space debris and will gradually descend towards the Earth and eventually begin an uncontrolled fall. And this is much worse. May fall in an unpredictable area of ​​the planet.
It will not work for spare parts either, this device is disposable.
Not good for a museum either. There is no one to take to the museum in space)
You can't drop it on the moon either. There isn't that much fuel. And why is this garbage on the moon? There are already tons of metal lying there, overgrown with dust.

[Silver99]

Damage diameter less than one millimeter? So is the gum really over on the ISS, losing a ship worth billions because of every small meteorite is wasteful. Submariners, on the other hand, do not abandon the boat during depressurization, but fight for the survivability of the ship.

[Smoker]

Quote from Silver99

lose a ship worth billions

losing a crew is more expensive ..

[Silver99]

Volkov-Patsaev-Dobrovolsky, the place of depressurization could be plugged with a finger, since 1971 technology has been developing, there are a lot of technical solutions from various kinds of mastics to emergency air compressors, in extreme cases, individual breathing apparatus for emergency rescue like submariners. And meteorites have always been and will be.

[Proton]

Try to close up a hole with a diameter of 1mm with chewing gum. in the water heating battery during the heating season.
Here, apparently, a similar situation.

[Silver99]

you separate sarcasm from solving the problem, you can’t take everything literally like that (((((regarding water heating, salt, but ordinary salt delays digging, well, if it’s more serious that there are plenty of clamps and couplings on sale.

[Horon]

The cooling system may have a fairly high pressure and difficulty with accessibility for repair.
Vacuum welding is difficult. Freon or other refrigerant is not water - does not contain salt. You can't plug a vacuum with your finger - you'll die from blood loss.
Even if it is possible to repair the cooling system, but with a large loss of refrigerant, there is simply nowhere to take it from, and its low amount can lead to overheating or overcooling of both the equipment and the crew. Both in the first and in the second case, the safety of the crew will be in question.

[Proton]

Perhaps your sarcasm is not quite understood.
But regarding the termination, I will say as a specialist (not the best) in air conditioning and ventilation systems - the air conditioning system uses high refrigerant pressure. For example, in a conventional multi-zone air conditioning system, the freon pressure is about 40 atm. The refrigerant itself is very fluid and is able to penetrate into any micro-holes and evaporate. No sealant will help, it is only possible to either replace the tube or solder it. Apparently, not completely stupid people are sitting on the technical council of Roskosmos, and if a decision was made to dispose of the device, apparently there was no other way.
Regarding air compressors - where and what do you plan to pump with this compressor? Try to imagine yourself in a hermetically sealed iron container, while the container itself is standing in the sun. How can you cool the inside? Only with a sealed air conditioning system.

[tihonmarine]

Quote: Proton

Try to close up a hole with a diameter of 1mm with chewing gum. in the water heating battery during the heating season.

Only the temperatures are different, in Cosmos in Celsius this figure is -273,15 degrees.

[Proton]

Unfortunately, you are wrong.
The temperature on the surface of the station is significantly different from absolute zero.
But this does not change the essence of the problem.
Heating was given simply as an example.

[skeptick2]

Quote from Silver99

Damage diameter less than one millimeter? So did the chewing gum run out on the ISS

Diameter 0,8. But even sealing it hermetically from the outside in this situation is unrealistic.
Yes, and that's not the point. The bottom line is that all the isooctane flew into space. With a whistle. Where to get the coolant for the system? Deliver from Earth? And how to fill it into the system? How to provide the necessary pressure? Filling is done on Earth with special equipment.
But the decision made is encouraging. Glad to see common sense has prevailed. Stopped these stupid talk about the possible descent of the crew in the "thermos".
It is not clear otherwise. Judging by the hidden text in the message, the situation is serious, the risks were more or less calculated, since the manned descent was put on hold. But in this case, the emergency is not only with the MS-22. NshS in fact and at the station. In case of force majeure (depressurization, fire) - how to escape from the ISS? "Drakosha" will take four. And where are the rest? If "MS-22" is unsuitable for descent with a crew?
And the second. The unmanned option is riskier. Yes, it gives a gain in time. Kononenko does not need to be retrained, and MS-23 can start on February 20th. But what if there is a failure during automatic docking? We don't remember how we docked the Soyuz with the robot Fedya? But there the second attempt was successful, fortunately.

[Arifon]

"... made the final decision to lower the damaged ship to Earth ..."
So it is written that a damaged ship will descend directly to Earth! What is it with us, Soyuz MS-22, has already become a ship returning to Earth?)
I don’t understand at all why let something down if there are no people there?

[Smoker]

Quote from Arifon

I don’t understand at all why let something down if there are no people there?

Rubbish must be taken away.

Quote from Arifon

What is it with us, Soyuz MS-22, has already become a ship returning to Earth?)

The ship will be returned to the Pacific Ocean, to the cemetery of space debris

[Arifon]

"Garbage must be taken away."
Well, they burned it in dense layers and that's it, the garbage was removed. Why is he on earth?

[Lomaster]

The descent vehicle from the heavy-duty right. It won't burn. Can be flooded. Like Progress. But it is better to return all necessary things, instruments, etc. to the ground in the descent vehicle.

[Horon]

What is it with us, Soyuz MS-22, has already become a ship returning to Earth?)

The descent vehicle is initially an element of the ship and yes, the union is returnable in this case.

[alexmach]

What is it with us, Soyuz MS-22, has already become a ship returning to Earth?

Of course not. He always was.

[Arifon]

And how much of that big ship is coming back? If Buran returned, then it was a return to Earth. And so - burned in the dense layers of the atmosphere and that's it! There are no people, what to return, a pan with a hole?

[Reader 2013]

It seems to be the first time, the ship is damaged by a meteorite, I have not heard of such damage before

[Smoker]

Quote: Citelle 2013

It seems to be the first time, the ship is damaged by a meteorite, it has never happened before

Maybe they were, but they didn’t tell us, but it wasn’t the critical components of the ship that were damaged ..

[Horon]

There were many such cases. This can be found in the memoirs of cosmonauts and spacecraft designers. Minor damages are repaired automatically with a special layer, the equipment has multiple redundancy and duplication, including for this. This problem was still puzzled on the first devices.
The main thing is that the meteorite particles are not too large and do not damage the astronauts themselves or a lot of equipment. For information: A millimeter meteorite pierces the station through and through, as the speed of the meeting can reach a speed of 25-30 km / second. The thinning of the outer shells of the station and the clouding of the elements of solar batteries and external optics are associated with micromiteorites (actually dust).

[VladBel]

They destroyed a useful person for Roskosmos, and now write memoirs about meteorites

[mark1]

What kind of misfortune is this - all our meteorites!

[VladBel]

There are such microcircuits for space in the world, radiation-resistant, they are made by only two companies on earth, one is American, in which I worked on such microcircuits, one is English, BAE, but there is also information from Russia that they are also doing this. Of course, you can do it, test it in radiation chambers, for example. But if there is no technology for the production of such chips (fab tech process SOI), then space objects will fall as if they were mowed down by meteorites.

[APASUS]

Such a rather vulnerable ship turns out. Do the astronauts have no possibility of welding in space, or are they more insured?

[Wedmak]

This is the first damage to a transport ship in orbit by a meteorite, sort of. We decided not to take risks, because. descending into the atmosphere, these are heavy loads and it is not clear how the damaged ship will react to this.

[skeptick2]

Quote: Wedmak

We decided not to take risks, because. descending into the atmosphere, these are heavy loads and it is not clear how the damaged ship will react to this.

Yes, the risks are too great.
The problem is that there is nowhere to give heat and nothing to give. It is not known how the equipment in the PAO will behave during heating, the run was done, but under normal conditions, heat exchange is now established through the station systems. And what will happen during the descent after undocking?
And how will the astronauts feel? Under overheating conditions? Well, if the descent takes a few hours and will be full-time. And if the second NshS? Remote control failure? Loss of orientation? And the ship will hang for a few extra hours? Or for a day? So after all, not only an increase in temperature is critical for milking the crew and instruments. Where does the humidity go?

[vadimtt]

There is another question, whether there was one meteorite or several. Man-made ones rarely fly alone, although they are separated depending on the mass and area. And there is no way to check the damage to the ablative protection on the descent if it took place.

[Lomaster]

Welding is possible. It was successfully carried out back in the 70s. But as an experiment. In reality, it has never been carried out for repairs. And it is unlikely they will. The risk of failure of the repair site is too great.

[tralflot1832]

As a specialist in refrigeration units, it turns out that we have a lot of SPECIALISTS, only in space they are not. Roskosmos did not apply to Avito ?

[spirit]

It’s not about the hole itself, but about the refrigerant that came out of it. He could fill in anything there and the tests won’t show it, but at the most crucial moment something can be covered. I think you would also not be delighted if you they gave a parachute that had just been shot from a shotgun and filled with water in the cold, having previously said that it seems that the patch will withstand and there is no ice, AT FIRST SIGHT, you can jump

[Alien From]

Maybe again Roskosmos does not finish speaking?

[Wedmak]

In fact, a delegation of aliens will be sent to Earth?

[Alien From]

It's about time, maybe only they will put things in order)

[faterdom]

How would there be more such micrometeorites and on American satellites, and on Ilonmask (also American).
Who is responsible for micrometeorites? Rosnano? It seems not - those are for nano ...
Rosmicro? And who's in charge there?

[Alien From]

There is such a cooperative "lake", I think it will do .....

[certero]

The truth is, That people in space have absolutely nothing to do.
each flight of Russian cosmonauts to the ISS is research vehicles that have not been sent to other planets, a Russian rover that has not landed on Mars, and a space telescope that has not been created.
Roskosmos resources are limited, and spending them on manned astronautics is a betrayal.
People in space are not needed now

[Lomaster]

I agree with the fact that it is time to tie up with manned flights. For 50 years in space, they still did not understand what a person should do there, except that they heroically fight the harmful conditions of weightlessness and radiation, as well as endlessly repair the stations themselves. Scientific achievements at the stations (I mean all - ours, Amer and Chinese) - the cat cried.
Therefore, the future belongs to unmanned vehicles.
I do not agree that human flights take resources. No, these are completely different budget items for Roscosmos. And the fact that our vehicles, rovers and telescopes do not fly is not a failure of Roscosmos, but of science and industry. They do not have time, and now they still cannot create something new and modern.

[_simply]

With Borisov, soon the entire Roskosmos will descend to Earth ... We will still remember Rogozin with a warm word. Borisov made some personnel decisions. Quite dubious.

[VladBel]

Now it will be permanent. This means that the cuts, oversights, familiarity and stupidity have begun again. Rogozin created a harmony that was taken and screwed over. They dispersed not only the dissatisfied, but everyone who does not take bribes or looks askance at it.

[Ilyas.spb]

But they predicted the beginning of man-made problems ... Degradation has reached space.