The Russian segment of the International Space Station, ISS for its acronym in English, continues to be the source of incidents. If NASA recently warned of a possible ‘catastrophic failure’ on the ISS due to air leaks that have occurred for five years in the transfer tunnel of the Russian module Zvezdanow it’s the space capsule Progress MS-29also Russian, the one that is causing problems.
This Saturday, Progress docked with Zvezda carrying a load of supplies to the ISS, including 3 tons of food and fuel. But when the Russian cosmonauts opened the cargo ship’s hatch, they got a surprise: a foul smell described as ‘toxic’.
‘After opening the hatch of the Progress spacecraft, the Roscosmos cosmonauts noticed an unexpected smell and they observed small dropsprompting the crew to close the Poisk hatch (module attached to the Progress capsule),’ NASA said in a statement on Sunday.
On Nov. 23, the unpiloted Progress 90 resupply spacecraft successfully docked to the International Space Station’s Poisk module. After opening the Progress spacecraft’s hatch, the Roscosmos cosmonauts noticed an unexpected odor and observed small droplets, prompting the crew to…
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) November 24, 2024
According to the space agency, the air cleaners and contaminant sensors aboard the orbital laboratory monitored the atmosphere of the station after the anomalous smell was detected. This Sunday, flight controllers at the Mission Control Center in Houston determined that the air quality inside the space station was at normal levels.
However, according to Russian Space Web, the smell was ‘toxic’ and prompted the Russian cosmonauts to immediately close the hatch that connected with the Progress spacecraft, launched from the cosmodrome Baikonur in Kazakhstan last Thursday.
The outlet reports that cosmonauts on the Russian segment of the station they put on their protective equipment and activated an additional air purification system on their side of the space station. On the American segment of the station, NASA astronaut Don Pettit He commented that he smelled a smell similar to that of ‘spray paint’indicating that it reached the American segment.
Yesterday afternoon, NASA noted that no concern about crew safety and that the astronauts were working to open the hatch between the module Poisk and the ship Progress. Docked to the space station in 2009, Poisk is a small module that connects to one of four docking ports on the Russian segment of the station. For now, the cause of the bad smell is unknown coming from Progress. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, is working to identify it.