The internal commission of the Rocket and Space Corporation Energia has finished investigating the causes of the incident with the Nauka module after docking with the International Space Station (ISS), the materials have been transferred to Roskosmos. According to the general designer of the corporation, Vladimir Solovyov, the spontaneous activation of the module's engines and the rotation of the station was not critical. NASA made no claims to the Russian side, he added.
Module “Science” docked to the ISS on July 29. After docking, the engines spontaneously turned on, which caused the ISS to “spin” by 540 degrees. The reason for the abnormal situation was called a program failure, the crew was not injured.
“An hour after what happened, I was talking to my colleague Joel Montalbano, the ISS Program Manager at NASA, whom I have known since 1993. I asked him about solar panels. He reassured me that the impact was two times less than the limit. He and his flight control team believe that nothing terrible has happened. Well, it turned around, so what? ” – said Mr. Soloviev in an interview with RIA Novosti.
He added that the RSC Energia commission has completed its investigation of the incident. “The materials have been handed over to the Roskosmos commission. After the completion of the work of this commission, certain information may be made public, ”he said.
Also, Vladimir Soloviev shared a version of the formation of leaks in the Zvezda module. “The exact reason for its formation is unclear. But when it was discovered, examined by cosmonauts, and the data was transmitted to Earth, materials scientists from RSC Energia and TsNIIMash concluded that this behavior is typical when the hull welding mode is violated, ”he explained.
According to the General Designer of RSC Energia, overheating of the body during welding can lead to the fact that the seams become porous after a long stay in a vacuum of an aluminum-magnesium alloy. The welder could have allowed overheating if he lingered a little in one place. “Let's add here internal vibrations that cause” vibration nodules “, resonance phenomena … As a result, the air starts to leave,” Mr. Solovyov said.
Earlier, Vladimir Solovyov said that the cosmonauts found blind cracks on the oldest module of the ISS Zarya. He fears that over time they will begin to creep, given that previously through cracks were found on the Zvezda module.
An air leak was recorded on the ISS in the fall of 2019. A year later, the crew discovered the first crack. Russia and the United States set up a working group in May to find the causes of the air leak in the Russian module. In July, the search for cracks was resumed.
About the problem on the ISS – in the material “Kommersant FM” “The Russian module cracked.”
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