That hole in the International Space Station was caused by a drill, not a meteorite

[Swordsmyth]

Last week, astronauts aboard the International Space Station woke to an alarm warning them of a pretty serious situation. The space station was losing pressure, which means a leak had formed somewhere on the spacecraft. With a finite amount of breathable air, the race was on to find the location of the leak and do something to fix it.

It wasn’t long before a tiny hole was discovered in the Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft docked to the space station. The tiny opening was thought to be the result of damage from a micrometeorite, which isn’t unheard of, and the crew quickly came up with a plan to repair it. Now, days later, Russian space agency Roscosmos says the hole wasn’t made by Mother Nature, but by a person with a drill, and tensions are high.




The images of the hole are pretty damning. It doesn’t look much like the result of a fast-moving space rock, and certainly appears to be drilled. There even appears to be marks on the paint-covered metal from where a drill bounced along the surface before finding purchase and slicing its way through.
So, who did it?

Multiple unnamed sources have spoken with Russian media outlet RIA Novosti and hinted that an internal investigation at the corporation that builds the spacecraft, Energia, has already yielded results. According to those sources, the person has been identified and apparently explained that the hole was drilled by accident and not with malicious intent. A fabric seal was placed over the hole to hide the mistake, and it lasted a couple of months before eventually breaking open in space.

More at: https://www.yahoo.com/news/hole-inte...132934282.html

[RonZeplin]

Too much vodka on Sunday, loose drill on Monday.

[TheCount]

White space suits.
What do they look like?
Follow the white rabbit.
Down the rabbit hole.
Qanon confirmed.
Trust the plan.

[Anti Globalist]

A hole in a space station? Reminds me of the Death Star from Star Wars.

[TheTexan]

This is why the Russians never landed on the moon.

[Swordsmyth]

However, a few days later what was merely an innocent close encounter with a meteor, turns out may have been straight out of a Stanley Kubrick movie, because according to PhysOrg, the Russian space chief said the air leak on the International Space Station last week could have been deliberate sabotage.
Russia's space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin said the hole detected Thursday in the Russian space craft docked at the orbiting station was caused by a drill and could have been done deliberately, either back on Earth or by astronauts in space. He said that astronauts used tape to seal the leak after it caused a small loss of pressure that was not life-threatening.
"There were several attempts at drilling," Rogozin said late Monday in televised comments, adding that the drill appeared to have been held by a "wavering hand". "What is this: a production defect or some premeditated actions?" he asked.

"We are checking the Earth version. But there is another version that we do not rule out: deliberate interference in space."
A state commission will seek to identify the culprit by name, Rogozin said, calling this a "matter of honour" for Russia's Energiya space manufacturing company that made the Soyuz.

Asked to comment on the sabotage allegations, a NASA spokeswoman referred all questions to the Russian space agency which is overseeing the commission's analysis.

A Russian MP who is a former cosmonaut suggested that a psychologically disturbed astronaut could have done it to force an early return home.

"We're all human, and anyone might want to go home, but this method is really low," Maxim Surayev of President Vladimir Putin's ruling party, told RIA Novosti state news agency.

"If a cosmonaut pulled this strange stunt—and that can't be ruled out—it's really bad," said Surayev, who spent two stints on the ISS. "I wish to God that this is a production defect, although that's very sad, too—there's been nothing like this in the history of Soyuz ships."

Russia announced it would stop carrying US astronauts to the space station in April.

Currently on the ISS are two cosmonauts from Russia, three NASA astronauts and a German from the European Space Agency.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...erate-sabotage

[Valli6]

...He said that astronauts used tape to seal the leak...

So they fixed it with duct tape?

[specsaregood]

So they fixed it with duct tape?

Proof that duct tape can fix anything that needs to be stuck.

[Swordsmyth]

New stunning official comments from Russian government sources suggest the Soyuz spacecraft currently docked at the International Space Station may have been purposely sabotaged after alarming new traces of what appears to be 'drilling' have been found which are significantly more extensive than previously thought.


The statements, however, point to the sabotage likely occurring on the Soyuz MS-09 craft during pre-launch or possibly while in orbit. Russia is in the midst of a full investigation after admitting early Friday that the damage is "more extensive" than what was previously estimated.

“There are drilling traces not only inside the living module [of the ISS], but also on anti-meteorite plates,” a Russian space program source told TASS news agency. These plates have been described in breaking media reports as "mounted outside of the station’s hermetic hull".
“The one who made the hole in the hull passed straight through it and the drill head hit external non-hermetic protection,” the source explained. "The top of the drill came through the pressure hull and hit the non-gas-tight outer shell."


Dmitry Rogozin, head of Russia's space agency has reportedly been engaging in phone talks concerning the problem with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. Yet Rogozin, considered close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, turned heads by saying he still considers the possibility of sabotage a distinct possibility
Rogozin asked: "What was it: a defect or some intentional acts? Where were these acts carried out? On the Earth or already in orbit?"
"Yet again, I am saying: we are not dismissing anything," he controversially emphasized.

More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...sult-foul-play

[Swordsmyth]

The saga over who or what caused the damage has taken a number of strange turns, and Russian space agency Roscosmos just issued a statement that adds yet another wrinkle. A commission investigating the incident has determined that the hole wasn’t drilled by accident, meaning that it was indeed intentional sabotage, but by who?

In a statement yesterday the head of Roscosmos declared that the hole was intentional damage caused by someone during the manufacturing process. It was not, as had been proposed, a defect or the result of some type of accident.
“It concluded that a manufacturing defect had been ruled out which is important to establish the truth,” Dmitry Rogozin, the Roscosmos boss said. “Where it was made will be established by a second commission, which is at work now.”

More at: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/russi...220404712.html

[Danke]

[Swordsmyth]

A Russian cosmonaut who explored a mysterious hole in a capsule docked to the International Space Station said Monday that the opening was drilled from inside the spacecraft and Russian law enforcement agencies are investigating what caused it.Sergei Prokopyev said investigators were looking at samples he and crewmate Oleg Kononenko collected during a Dec. 12 spacewalk. Prokopyev and two other astronauts returned to Earth last week from a 197-day space station mission.


Prokopyev said at a news conference the cavity started from the capsule's interior and "it's up to the investigative organs to judge when that hole was made."
The astronauts' quick identification and repair of the hole demonstrated "the crew was ready for any developments," he said.

More at: https://news.yahoo.com/russian-law-e...145208820.html

[Anti Federalist]

[Swordsmyth]

Amid reports that the Russians will keep the cause of an air leak discovered at the International Space Station in 2018 secret, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has promised to speak personally with the head of the Russian space agency.
"They have not told me anything," Bridenstine said during a Houston energy conference question session Thursday (Sept. 19), according to the Houston Chronicle. But he emphasized that he wants to keep good relations with the Russians, one of the two chief partners on the orbiting complex.
"I don't want to let one item set [the relationship] back, but it is clearly not acceptable that there are holes in the International Space Station," he said, referring to the 2-millimeter (0.08 inches) hole that the Expedition 56 crew found in the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft, a crew vehicle that was docked to the station.
Bridenstine's comments came in the wake of a report by Russia's state-run international news agency RIA Novosti, in which Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos (the Russian space agency), suggested his agency found what created the hole last year, but would not disclose the results outside of Roscosmos.

"What happened is clear to us, but we won't tell you anything," Rogozin said at a meeting with participants at a science conference, according to a computer-translated page from RIA Novosti's Russian-language report on Wednesday (Sept. 18).

More at: https://www.livescience.com/russian-...asa-chief.html

[Stratovarious]

So they fixed it with duct tape?

Never leaver Earth without duct tape and bailing wire.