NASA Weakly Defends Astronaut Following Russian State Media Accusations of ISS Sabotage

Still stinging from the current ISS cartwheeling mishap, Russian state-owned information company TASS alleges {that a} NASA astronaut intentionally broken a docked Soyuz spacecraft for the aim of facilitating a immediate return to Earth, in an incident courting again to 2018. The declare is unfounded and outrageous—however you wouldn’t understand it from NASA’s tepid response.

TASS is directing the accusation at NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor, who served as a member of the Expedition 56/57 crew, together with Alexander Gerst of ESA and Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos, from June 6, 2018 to December 20, 2018. TASS claims that an nameless supply instructed the information company that Auñón-Chancellor developed deep vein thrombosis whereas in orbit, a situation that, in line with the supply, might have made her mentally unstable, main her to drill a gap into the Soyuz spacecraft to expedite a return to Earth.

The declare is monstrously preposterous and offensive, and NASA’s halfhearted response to the accusation leaves a lot to be desired.

I assumed we have been executed with this silly story, however apparently not. It all began on August 29, 2018, when a minor air strain leak was detected on the International Space Station. The leak was traced to the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft that launched to the ISS on June 6, 2018. Crew members quickly patched the 2-millimeter-wide gap with Kapton tape and later with an epoxy-based sealant. Problem solved.

Russian officers scrambled to find out a trigger. Initial hypothesis was {that a} micro-meteorite induced the fracture. This concept was finally dominated out because it grew to become obvious that the outlet was created from the within. Accordingly, Russia’s area company Roscosmos claimed that the outlet was attributable to a “faltering hand,” that’s, human error throughout manufacturing, or “deliberate spoilage,” in reference to sabotage. Russian media took it additional, claiming {that a} sick NASA astronaut intentionally created the outlet to expedite a fast return to the floor. That stated, Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev insisted that the outlet wasn’t drilled by a crew member.

The spacecraft finally returned to Earth on December 20, 2018 with out incident, however Roscosmos by no means disclosed an official cause for the outlet. The Russian media is now revisiting this concept within the wake of the Nauka incident, wherein a newly arrived module inadvertently fired its thrusters, inflicting the ISS to carry out 1.5 backflips earlier than management was restored. In response to the following criticism from American media retailers, the state-run TASS ran a post on August 12 to counter 12 American claims made towards Roscosmos.

The publish addressed claims like, “Russia cannot maintain the space infrastructure inherited from the USSR in working order,” and “Russia designs ships and modules well, but builds and operates them poorly,” however the response to the declare that the Russian area program is now replete with issues, from air leaks by means of to Nauka, hit manner beneath the belt.

The writer of the TASS report, Mikhail Kotov, is claiming to have acquired data from an nameless high-ranking official within the Russian area business. Ars Technica science reporter Eric Berger suspects the supply is Dmitry Rogozin, the overall director of Roscosmos, and he’s most likely not improper.

The gap couldn’t have been drilled whereas the spacecraft was nonetheless on Earth, as a result of if “there were any holes in it, then the pressure in this ship would immediately drop and it would not pass the appropriate tests,” claims TASS’s supply (translation from Russian to English offered by Google). Auñón-Chancellor, having developed the primary recognized case of deep vein thrombosis in orbit (thrombosis is when a blot clot kinds in a number of deep veins, trigger leg ache and swelling), provoked an “acute psychological crisis,” compelling her to conjure a technique “to speed up her return to the planet,” TASS’s supply speculates.

A scientific paper from 2019 reported that one astronaut developed the situation on account of extended publicity to microgravity situations, however the establish of the astronaut wasn’t revealed.

Other purported strains of proof embrace a malfunctioning video digital camera on the junction of the Russian and American segments, and the American refusal to have their astronauts take a polygraph take a look at, whereas Russian cosmonauts agreed to take the so-called lie detector take a look at. As the TASS article additionally claims, the “Russian Federation did not get the opportunity to examine the tools and drills that are on the ISS for the presence of the remains of metal shavings from the hull of the household compartment of our ship.” Seven of the eight holes detected on the spacecraft (just one gap pierced by means of the hull) have been drilled “as if with bounces of the drill, which rather speaks of drilling precisely in zero gravity conditions without the necessary support.” Finally, the haphazard location of the holes suggests it was executed by an individual not aware of the development of the Soyuz spacecraft, the article asserts.

Writing at NASA Watch, former NASA worker Keith Cowing said the state of affairs proposed within the TASS article “sounds more like one of those goofy movie plots that Russia always seems to want to film on the ISS.” He described the article as “childish, defensive, and not the sort of thing that a great spacefaring nation should be putting out to explain its problems.”

Cowing additionally introduced up a superb level about how Auñón-Chancellor was outed as having deep vein thrombosis. This is a giant no-no, because it’s a violation of an ISS code of conduct signed by Russia and different companions. As the code stipulates: “All personal medical information, whether derived from medical monitoring, investigations, or medical contingency events, shall be treated as private medical information and shall be transmitted in a private and secure fashion in accordance with procedures to be set forth by the [Multilateral Medical Operations Panel].”

During an unrelated teleconference on Friday, August 13, Kathy Lueders, NASA affiliate administrator for human exploration and operations, expressed her opinion when requested to touch upon the TASS article.

“Serena is an extremely well-respected crew member who has served her country and made invaluable contributions to the agency,” Lueders stated. “And I stand behind Serena—we stand behind Serena and her professional conduct, and I did not find this accusation credible.”

Lueders repeated her stance on Twitter, with Senator Bill Nelson chiming in along with his support.

NASA’s official statement on the matter is a bit underwhelming, because it explicitly fails to dismiss the accusation being made within the TASS article:

All the International Space Station companions are devoted to mission security and the welfare of the crew. The International Space Station companions all take part in a number of evaluations prior to each main station exercise to evaluate and make sure the security of all crew members. The gap that was detected in late August 2018 by the area station crew was rapidly sealed, restoring air-tight strain to the station. Russian cosmonauts carried out a spacewalk that December to collect extra engineering knowledge for Russian specialists on Earth and to look externally on the effectiveness of the interior restore. The Soyuz spacecraft was completely checked and deemed secure for the crew to return to Earth, which it did, on Dec. 20, 2018.

To shield their privateness, the company won’t focus on medical data relating to crew members.

As Berger asserts, “NASA’s public relations folks apparently weighed whether they should stand up for their astronaut and respond to something obviously ridiculous or, for the sake of expediency, avoid getting into a pissing match with Roscosmos.” The area company, it might appear, “chose the latter,” he wrote.

That strategy is comprehensible but in addition infuriating. Stronger phrases in condemnation of the accusation and a full-throated assist of an unfairly maligned NASA astronaut have been completely warranted in my view. What’s extra, the NASA assertion, so far as I can inform, doesn’t seem anyplace on the company’s web site. Unless there’s some context we’re lacking, evidently NASA might do extra to defend its astronaut from this assault.