Soyuz capsule leak could strand 3 astronauts on space station, raising safety concern, expert says

[Admin]

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft docked to the International Space Station is most likely unusable after a coolant leak, which means the orbital outpost has a serious safety problem, an expert said.

Soyuz capsule leak could strand 3 astronauts on space station, raising safety concern, expert says : Read more

 

[Mergatroid]

So why not send up a crew dragon capsule with some spare NASA space suits?
Seems pretty obvious to me.
Or send up a crew dragon and use the space suits they already had aboard the Soyus capsule? That crew came aboard the station with suits.

 

[billslugg]

The Crew Dragon space suit has a proprietary umbilical connector, no other suit will attach properly. There are people on ISS who have never been fitted for them. Perhaps they could take measurements on ISS and send them to the tailors on Earth?

 

[Unclear Engineer]

I would think that an adapter could be made for the umbilical cord. It probably should already have been designed, considering that this sort of problem is foreseeable.

The padded seats seem like a different issue. I wonder if those could be taken from the Soyuz and installed in a Dragon. What are the G forces for Dragon re-entry? Whatever ad hoc engineering that is needed to move the seats into Dragon would have to be highly reliable at those loads, or a loose seat might kill many/all occupants?

 

[Janoha]

The whole situation seems fishy to me. The Soyuz which holds 3 people just happens to have an accident and there’s a 4 seat American capsule also docked. There are now 3 Russian cosmonauts and 4 non Russian astronauts aboard. How much do you want to bet that the 3 Russians will stage some kind of emergency forcing the 4 non Russians to abandon the station then claim it for Russia. It’s exactly the kind of thing Russia would do.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Except that one of the Russians would need to leave on the Dragon capsule and one of the Americans would need to stay on the ISS, due to space suit incompatibility with the different capsules.

 

[tjj300]

In an actual lifeboat emergency, all seven could leave in the Dragon. Three would not have pressure suits and would have to with padding rather than actual seats, but in a life-or-death situation you do what you have to do.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Space.com seems to not have published this yet, but a 0.8mm hole was found in the Soyuz capsule and is believed to be caused by "space debris". See https://arstechnica.com/science/202...immediate-action-on-damaged-soyuz-spacecraft/ .

I would love to see that piece of debris. I wonder if it will turn out to be a meteorite or a piece of space junk humans launched. Unfortunately, it will be the Russians who get a look at it. If it turns out to be a piece of their own satellite that they intentionally blew to bits a while back, I don't expect them to say that, especially in the current international political situation.

 

[ecky thump]

I am sure that there is no panic, yet.

 

[ecky thump]

Having read an ebook from Nasa (Russia has been living on lies for 100 years) they rename every failure (and there were an awful lot) to cover things up. Cosmos series made up a huge percentage of renamed craft, from the Zond series and before. I think possibly in the current climate it will come out as a piece of an american craft and it was all their fault.