Meteoroid hit conjectured after major leak from Soyuz capsule
Quote:
Originally Posted by 16 Dec 2022 Samantha Lock and Oliver Holmes, The Guardian
A major leak from a Russian capsule docked on the International Space Station was most probably caused when a small meteoroid smashed into a radiator, leading to coolant being sprayed into space, a Roscosmos official has said.
Sergei Krikalev, a former cosmonaut who is now director of crewed space flight programs at Russia’s space corporation, said Thursday’s leak from the Soyuz MS-22 could affect the capsule’s overall coolant system but that there was “no threat for the crew” of the space station.
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Micrometeoroids, naturally occurring pieces of rock or metal that can be as small as a grain of sand, pose a significant danger to human spaceflight. They hurl around the Earth at about 17,000mph (27,400km/h) – much faster than the speed of a bullet.
Human-made “space junk” can also damage equipment. Last year, Russia blew up one of its own satellites in a missile test that created clouds of zooming shrapnel.
Coolant leak on the Soyuz MS-23 vehicle docked to ISS
