Cosmonauts Cut into Soyuz to Find Hole, Make Huge Mess

Doug Messier News 11 Comments

Two Russian cosmonauts spent about 7.5 hours outside the International Space Station today. They cut through insulation on a Soyuz orbital module to try to find the outside of a hole that was apparently drilled during pre-launch preparations on the ground. They made a real mess of things, with insulation floating all over the place. (According to presumably informed tweets, the debris will probably de-orbit quickly — one hopes.)

  • Mr Snarky Answer

    They left it like when a four year-old is done playing in their room.

  • AdmBenson

    I wonder where Roscosmos sourced the knives and pruning shears they used for this job. The garden center at Russian Walmart, perhaps?

  • ThomasLMatula

    And they are planning to return to Earth in it???

  • Jeff2Space

    They will return in this Soyuz. But they didn’t cut into the descent module, so no worries. The leak was in the orbital module, which is always jettisoned after the reentry burn.

  • windbourne

    so, it makes perfect sense for why to cut in and look at things.

  • Maxtrue

    So where is the truth to the Russian accusation the CIA did this while in orbit?

    Speaking of space and human intelligence, how smart were our ancestors? https://www.athensjournals.gr/history/2018-1-X-Y-Sweatman.pdf I rather doubt many people would make it to their relatives without using GPS.

    Recently an Astronaut who piloted Atlantis had to explain to a crowd of students at the Kennedy Space Center, the earth is round.

    I wonder what ice age this caused https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181114160042.htm

    Sorry for the off topic….

  • duheagle

    Looks like someone should have gone a bit lighter on the pre-EVA potato juice ration.

  • therealdmt

    “Recently an Astronaut who piloted Atlantis…”

    So Atlantis was real!

  • Jeff2Space

    I wouldn’t say it makes perfect sense. EVAs always involve danger. I’m not sure NASA would have ever sent out an astronaut with a survival knife and told them to start hacking into the spacecraft’s insulation which is right over the fairly thin aluminum pressure vessel.

    To me, this is just another dog and pony show put on by the Russians because they don’t want the world to believe the reality that their space program is becoming very unreliable. Instead, they put forth the “theory” that a US astronaut on the ISS drilled the hole while the Soyuz spacecraft was docked at ISS! Ludicrous!

    Look at the launch history of all Proton and Soyuz launch vehicle variants over the last 10 years as well as the failures of Progress resupply vessels. Looking into the details you’ll see lots of different individual causes which all add up to a systemic problem with quality control and quality assurance. The Russian space program isn’t what it used to be as Russia’s economy slides further into decline. Ignoring their nuclear weapons, they’re just another small petrochemical state with an economy that isn’t close to being a “world power” anymore.

  • Maxtrue

    With Atlantis sitting in a building a few hundred yards away, I rather doubt anyone there had not already seen it in person.

  • publiusr

    They have guts–have to give them that.
    Soyuz seppuku guts….no rice paper….