In the event, I fully expect NASA to ignore any such additional risk as it has already ignored the notably less-than-Dragon reliability of Soyuz rides in order to keep putting Americans on these rattle-trap spacecraft. Politics uber alles has been NASA policy forever anent ISS.

Unfortunately, I fear that you are probably right in that expectation.

I also would not be exactly shocked if it turns out to be the case that there were Chinese interests lurking behind Mr. Artemyev’s amateur spycraft episode.

On the other hand, SpaceX may be reluctant to host any more Russians than they are currently contractually required to host. Flying Russian cargo or cosmonauts may not be in favor with them at the moment.

Quite possibly!

But politics come into the picture here, too. If when the time comes, Donald Trump is in the middle of negotiations with Russians with a view to restoring some economic relations, he might lean on Elon to sell the Russians a ride int the interests of avoiding unnecessary frictions. It might be hard for Elon to refuse. But that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t detail a security team to every cosmonaut, including into the bathroom stalls.

Stay tuned. We shall see.

Happy to oblige. Frankly, until this recent misadventure, I was not even aware that there were slide-out service platforms beneath Soyuz launch pads. It seems we often learn new things whenever something goes wrong in a high-profile way. Much of what I know about modern civil aircraft, for example, I have learned by watching the Air Disasters documentary series on TV. Except for the fact that the Russian government would never cooperate with producers, there have been enough incidents, over the years, to cover at least a season or two of a notional Space Disasters show.

Richard M,

Good point about Russian vs. NASA risk tolerance – though given current plans for Artemis 2 and Artemis 4 there is a lot less daylight between the two than I would prefer. In the event, I fully expect NASA to ignore any such additional risk as it has already ignored the notably less-than-Dragon reliability of Soyuz rides in order to keep putting Americans on these rattle-trap spacecraft. Politics uber alles has been NASA policy forever anent ISS. The only hope for a more assertive NASA is Jared Isaacman’s accession to the NASA Administrator chair. We shall see.

I wonder just how much of a self-starter our Russian astro-spy actually was. The PRC is certainly quite aggressive in using any of its citizens with physical presence in the West as intelligence-gathering assets – coercively if necessary. Based on his non-astronaut resume, this guy doesn’t seem the type to need much of a push to do what he did. As I have speculated elsewhere, I think he might even have done what he did less for the direct benefit of Mother Russia than for its indirect benefit through swapping the intelligence “take” to the PRC for additional assistance with the war against Ukraine.

Whatever the behind-the-scenes truth of the situation, it is just one more instance of the Russians’ long history of being highly problematical “partners” in any jointly-undertaken enterprise. The inevitable increase in precautionary measures that will now be put in place to prevent any recurrence of such activity by future cosmonaut passengers on Dragons will do nothing positive for the “camaraderie” between Russians and the rest of the ISS astronaut corps.

Having been a vociferous opponent of the NASA-Roscosmos seat swap arrangement from well before its inception, I would be delighted if it was now abandoned – particularly if doing so would provide a Russian-free interregnum on ISS while they get their launch pad act together once the current Russian crew complete their missions.

I do not anticipate that happening, however, given that NASA has been as supine regarding past hostile Russian unilateralisms as, say the current UK government is anent Paki rape gangs. The Russians have already rendered the whole seat swap arrangement problematic going forward by unilaterally de-synchronizing their mission durations from those of NASA – which, absent a change to 8-month NASA crew rotations, already breaks the former one-to-one nature of the swaps. The Russians – no surprise – will now be getting more seats in return for less should NASA elect to keep its own crew rotations at the 6-month length.

I expect NASA to do exactly that as lengthening its own mission durations would mean fewer NASA and allied astronauts would get ISS stints between now and the end of ISS operations. I cannot imagine that would go over very well in any of the affected astronaut offices. Absent some hardball potentially being played by Jared Isaacman, NASA will simply accede to Roscosmos’s cheese-paring of the seat swaps and pretend all is well.

Clicked on the link –

Access Denied, Code one zero one one
From the police: identify the frequency
From the digital: a matter of connectivity
Whatever the cause, could not get it done

Edward: It is a good video by Manley, but he really didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. The one fact I was unclear on what the difference between the mobile transporter and this second service platform, and that detail was explained by Dick Eagleson.

One note: Manley was unsure about the status of the Soyuz pad at French Guiana. I am not. Since September the French rocket startup Maiaspace has taken possession and is reconfiguring it for its rocket. That option sailed a long time ago.

Maybe the cosmonaut was sneaking the design of what was called the “dance floor” for the Starship pad 1 access, similar to the destroyed platform. They sure could use something like that, because it could be installed and removed fairly quickly.

On the other hand, SpaceX may be reluctant to host any more Russians than they are currently contractually required to host. Flying Russian cargo or cosmonauts may not be in favor with them at the moment.
_________________
Robert,
Scott Manley has a video explaining the hardware, the accident, and why alternates do not easily solve the problem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv4ClusLU2s (17 minutes)

All of Roscosmos’s difficulties notwithstanding, I think they’d actually have some urgency about resolving this, since it’s a question of prestige and appearance, which the Russians are always very sensitive about….the last thing the Kremlin wants is to have to go hat in hand to NASA or SpaceX to beg a ride for their cosmonauts, at least for no longer than absolutely necessary.

What worries me, though, is that the Russians already accept higher risks than we do, and heaven knows how reliable whatever kludged-together solution, as Mr Eagleson puts it, would really be. If I am NASA, I’d be demanding more insight into what they are doing before I put one of my astronauts on a Soyuz at that pad. The Russians are welcome to adopt whatever risk levels they see fit for *their* people and cargo, but NASA is not under any such obligation to assume them, too, if it seems too risky.

Cynics might suggest that adding this issue on top of the fact that cosmonauts are now getting caught red-handed engaged in industrial espionage here (even if wholly at the initiative of the cosmonaut in question), this may well be the moment when it’s best advised to abandon the seat swap agreement altogether. I do not have enough information to evaluate that question. But I am sure it has occured to people at NASA.

Dick Eagleson: Thank you for the clarification. These details sometimes befuddle me.

Based on what you say, the Russians should be able to improvise a system to renew launches quicker than initially supposed, since the damaged section is not directly required by the rocket itself. It could also be that they will take this event as an opportunity to do a longer mission, as I speculate.

And as you say, we can only wait and see.

It wasn’t the Soyuz mobile transporter that was damaged but rather a mobile service platform that slides in and out like a cash register drawer beneath the launch platform to allow access by service crew to the underside of the rocket once it has been rolled out and stood up.

Among other duties these service crewmen perform, using this platform, is installing the giant kitchen matches that are used to ignite the Soyuz engines on the central core and the strap-on boosters. Until the platform is salvaged/repaired or replaced outright, the Russians can still roll a Soyuz or Progress vehicle out to the pad and stand it up, but they can’t make preparations – at least in their accustomed fashion – to light it for launch.

Repairing/replacing the mobile service platform could well be a lengthy procedure. But there might be some sort of kluged-together work-around the Russians can cobble up to allow Soyuz and Progress flights to continue in the interim. We can only wait and see.

https://i.sstatic.net/yrAHMYO0.png

Amazing, that so many vehicles exist, to service the ISS. But there probably was a way to do it much cheaper, alas.