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Inspection of leaking Progress after undocking detects no obvious damage

After undocking the Progress freighter from ISS yesterday, Russian astronauts on the station rolled it so that all sides of its service module could be photographed and inspected in the hope of spotting the leak in its coolant system that sprung on February 11th.

No visual damage has been detected at the Progress MS-21 spacecraft after it undocked from the International Space Station. “After the Progress MS-21 cargo spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station’s Poisk mini-research module, footage was made of its exterior surface and no visual damage was detected,” the statement [from Roscosmos] reads.

Initially the Russians postponed its de-orbit as they considered the idea of redocking the freighter to another port on the Russian half of ISS in order to inspect it more closely, but eventually they decided to fore-go that plan and de-orbit it on February 19th, one day later.

In watching the live stream of the undocking and the roll maneuver, I thought I saw a partial reddish-orange stain, similar to the stain around the hole that occurred in the Soyuz capsule in December, but it was mostly hidden behind other equipment and the Russians seemed to not consider this significant.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

4 comments

  • Ray Van Dune

    Well, you learn something every day. I checked-out your use of the word “fore-go”, suspecting it should not be hyphenated. Apparently I was mostly right, but I found something even stranger.

    The actual word for deferring something is “forgo”. The word “forego” with an “e” really means “to come before”, like saying “The meal’s main course will typically forego dessert, but many children would happily forgo it to get the the sweets!”

    Even more confusing is the practice of putting a trailing “e” before the “s” to make either word plural: “foregoes” vs. “foregos”, and “forgoes” vs. “forgos”! Apparently the “e” is preferred, but optional. What a mess.

  • Ray Van Dune: Now that you have thoroughly confused me, I plan to do nothing. :)

  • Col Beausabre

    The saboteurs are very clever at hiding their work

  • Max

    Sometimes all it takes is carelessness… Like a replacement off-the-shelf coolant pressure relief valve not designed for “vacuum” that releases prematurely.
    Or plastic and rubber parts/o-rings that are not designed for the extreme space temperatures that will eventually fail.

    During the pandemic, new parts suppliers had to be found for unavailable or nonexistent supplies. There’s probably a warehouse somewhere substituting “what is needed” for “what we have”, thinking the customer will never know the difference… “Occam‘s razor” never under estimate the ignorance of the new stock boy.

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