MOSCOW – Russia launched checks Tuesday after its space chief said an airleak on the International Space Station last week could have been caused bydeliberate sabotage.
Space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin said the hole detected Thursday in aRussian space craft docked at the orbiting station was caused by a drilland could have been done deliberately, either back on Earth or in space.
Astronauts used tape to seal the leak after it caused a small loss ofpressure that was not life-threatening.
“There were several attempts at drilling,” Rogozin said late Monday intelevised comments.
He added that the drill appeared to have been held by a “wavering hand.”
“What is this: a production defect or some premeditated actions?” he asked.
“We are checking the Earth version. But there is another version that we donot rule out: deliberate interference in space.”
A commission will seek to identify the culprit by name, Rogozin said,calling this a “matter of honour” for Russia’s Energiya space manufacturingcompany that made the Soyuz.
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Previously Rogozin had said the hole in the side of the Soyuz ship used toferry astronauts was most likely caused from outside by a tiny meteorite.
“We have already ruled out the meteorite version,” Rogozin said late Monday.
The hole is in a section of the Soyuz ship that will not be used to carryastronauts back to Earth.
Energiya will check all its Soyuz and Progress cargo craft for possibledefects, both at its production site outside Moscow and those awaitinglaunch at Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, RIA Novosti state news agencyreported Tuesday, citing a source in the space industry.
The ISS is one of the few areas of Russia-US cooperation that remainsunaffected by the slump in relations between the countries and Washington’ssanctions.
Currently on the ISS are two cosmonauts from Russia and three NASAastronauts as well as one German astronaut from the European Space Agency.- APP/AFP
