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Russian space agency Roscosmos, on Tuesday, revealed that they have completed the investigation into a “hole” that was found in a Soyuz spacecraft in 2018 when the vehicle was docked to the International Space Station (ISS).
Roscosmos, speaking to Russian publication RIA Novosti, said that they have already sent the investigation results to law enforcement for further action. Roscosmos said, “All results of the investigation regarding the hole in the habitation module of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft were transmitted to Law Enforcement officials.”
No other details were provided by the space agency.
Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev, European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst, and NASA’s Serena Auñón-Chancellor had flown to the ISS in the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft.
As for the 2018 incident, no astronauts or cosmonauts were in danger, however, the event was fairly embarrassing for Russian space officials. Notably, in August 2018, a 2 mm breach was discovered in the ‘orbital module of the Soyuz MS-09 vehicle’ which was docked at the ISS.
Who was the culprit?
Since the incident, speculation has been rife about who might have caused this. Some Russian media reported that a manufacturing or testing defect might have caused the “hole”, however, sources in the Russian government later spread rumours that a discontented NASA astronaut had drilled the hole.
TASS, the Russian state news service, in April, also published a piece of news saying that Auñón-Chancellor had “an acute psychological crisis” and drilled the hole to return to Earth at the earliest. NASA had issued a clarification, denying the news, at the time.
Now, another conspiracy theory is coming to the fore which says that Auñón-Chancellor might have been behind drilling the hole “due to stress after an unsuccessful romantic relationship with another crew member.”
This piece of information was published in the latest RIA Novosti article. Again coming to the astronaut’s defense, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson was quoted as saying, “These attacks are false and lack any credibility. I fully support Serena and stand behind all of our astronauts.”
