Roscosmos: The leak in the spacecraft was due to an external impact

MOSCOW (AP) — A coolant leak from an unmanned Russian supply ship docked to the International Space Station was due to an external impact, not a manufacturing defect, the Russian space company said Tuesday.

The Progress MS-21 cargo ship leak was detected on February 11 and occurred after a similar leak occurred in December in a Soyuz crew transfer capsule.

Russian space officials say the December leak was caused by a small meteoroid that left a small hole in the outer radiator and leaked coolant into space, but a new leak from another spacecraft has raised questions about this theory, and Russian state spacecraft Roscosmos has launched an investigation into the incident to see if it could be due to a manufacturing defect.

NASA reported that its specialists were helping their Russian counterparts fix the refrigerant leak.

After checks at Russian space factories and launch facilities and close inspection of the cargo spacecraft, Roscosmos concluded that the latest leak was due to an “external impact” similar to that which caused the December leak of the Soyuz crew.

Roscosmos on Tuesday released a close-up image of the Progress MS-21 showing a 12 millimeter (0.5 inch) hole in its external radiator, which it said had not been detected before.

Once the manufacturing defect was ruled out, Roscosmos authorized the launch of a new Soyuz crew capsule which should replace the damaged one.

Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio were supposed to travel in the Soyuz capsule, which they used to reach the orbital base, to return to Earth in March, but Russian space authorities have decided that the high temperatures caused by the leaking coolant could make it difficult to use, so it will return to Earth next month without a crew.