Meteoroid hit suspected after major leak from Soyuz capsule

A major leak from a Russian capsule docked on the International Space Station was most probably caused when a small meteoroid smashed into a radiator, leading to coolant being sprayed into space, a Roscosmos official has said.

Sergei Krikalev, a former cosmonaut who is now director of crewed space flight programs at Russia’s space corporation, said Thursday’s leak from the Soyuz MS-22 could affect the capsule’s overall coolant system but that there was “no threat for the crew” of the space station.

The leak had prompted a pair of cosmonauts to abort a planned spacewalk earlier in the day. It also raises concerns over the capsule’s capability of returning safely to Earth next spring as planned with two cosmonauts and a Nasa astronaut, or whether an emergency replacement vehicle will have to be sent up.

Micrometeoroids, naturally occurring pieces of rock or metal that can be as small as a grain of sand, pose a significant danger to human spaceflight. They hurl around the Earth at about 17,000mph (27,400km/h) – much faster than the speed of a bullet.

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