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A28 SCIENCE
Thursday 13 december 2018
Spacewalking astronauts check site of capsule leak

By MARCIA DUNN space chief Dmitry Rogozin
AP Aerospace Writer observed that the hole
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. could have been drilled
(AP) — Spacewalking as- during manufacturing — or
tronauts ripped through in orbit. The space station’s
thick insulation on a cap- commander at the time
sule docked to the Inter- flatly denied any wrongdo-
national Space Station on ing by himself or his crew.
Tuesday, looking for clues Rogozin has since back-
to a mysterious drilled hole pedaled his statement,
that leaked precious cabin blaming the news media
air four months ago. for twisting his words.
Russians Sergei Prokopyev A Russian investigation is
and Oleg Kononenko spot- ongoing, according to
ted the tiny hole in the ex- Rogozin, and samples col-
ternal hull of the Soyuz cap- lected during the space-
sule, more than five hours walk will be returned to
into their grueling space- Earth on the Soyuz. The
walk. spacewalk findings could
“That is exactly the hole In this image from video made available by NASA, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko performs lead to better repair tech-
we’ve been looking for, a spacewalk outside the International Space Station on Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2018. niques in the future, officials
guys,” radioed Russian Mis- Associated Press said.
sion Control outside Mos- part of the capsule will be they cut away a 10-inch sion Control urged. The Soyuz is scheduled to
cow. jettisoned as usual before (25-centimeter) swatch “It was very difficult ... but depart the orbiting lab on
The spacewalkers reported atmospheric re-entry, and of thermal insulation and we were able to get it Dec. 19, U.S. time, with Pro-
seeing no drill marks around so poses no risk for descent. debris shield. Bits of shred- done,” one of the space- kopyev, American Serena
the black dot, like on the in- Prokopyev and Kononenko ded silver insulation floated walkers said. Aunon-Chancellor and
side. had to use a pair of tele- away like confetti, as the NASA said the pieces of German Alexander Gerst,
Back in August, the station scoping booms to reach two slashed at it with a knife freed insulation posed no the station’s current skip-
crew patched the hole in the Soyuz. It took nearly and long cutters. The astro- threat to the space station per. It ferried them up in
the Soyuz capsule, plug- four hours for them to cross nauts collected samples of and would likely burn up in June.
ging it with epoxy and the approximately 100 feet the black epoxy sealant the atmosphere in a day or Remaining aboard the
gauze. Russian space of- (30 meters) to get there. protruding from the hole, so. 250-mile-high (400-kilome-
ficials wanted the site sur- Then the insulation proved just one-tenth of an inch (2 The capsule leak caused a ter-high) outpost for the
veyed from the outside, harder to remove than ex- millimeters) across. flap between the U.S. and next six months will be an
before the capsule’s return pected, taking another Their spacewalk lasted al- Russian space agencies, American, Russian and
to Earth next week with Pro- one to two hours of effort. most eight hours. “It is high following its discovery at Canadian who arrived last
kopyev and two others. This To expose the external hull, time you went home,” Mis- the end of August. Russian week.q

NASA’s first look: Tiny asteroid

is studded with boulders

By SETH BORENSTEIN of Arizona said the blueish smallest object that a hu-
AP Science Writer space rock is “a little more man-made spacecraft has
WASHINGTON (AP) — rugged of an environment circled.
NASA’s first look at a tiny than we expected” with Scientists will spend a year
asteroid shows the space hundreds of 33-foot (10 me- scouting the space rock for
rock is more moist and ter) boulders, instead of just a good location and then
studded with boulders than one or two. in 2020 it will dive close to
originally thought. “There’s evidence of liquid the surface and a robot-
Scientists on Monday re- water in Bennu’s past,” said ic arm will shoot nitrogen
leased the first morsels NASA scientist Amy Simon. puffs into the soil and col-
of data collected since “This is great news. This is a lect grains of dirt.
This mosaic image composed of 12 PolyCam images collected their spacecraft Osiris-Rex surprise.” Those asteroid bits will be
on Dec. 2, 2018, and provided by NASA shows the asteroid hooked up last week with Scientists think Bennu is a returned to Earth in 2023.
Bennu.
Associated Press the asteroid Bennu, which leftover from the beginning The $800 million Osiris-Rex
is only about three blocks of the solar system 4.5 bil- mission began with a 2016
wide and weighs about 80 lion years ago when plan- launch from Cape Ca-
million tons (73 million met- ets tried to form and some naveral, Florida. Its odom-
ric tons). Bennu regularly failed. Lauretta said it looks eter read 1.2 billion miles
crosses Earth’s orbit and like Bennu was once a (2 billion kilometers) as of
will come perilously close in chunk of a bigger asteroid last week. Both the space-
about 150 years. that probably had water craft and asteroid’s names
There’s no liquid water on in it. When Osiris-Rex starts come from Egyptian my-
the asteroid, but there’s orbiting Bennu in January thology. Osiris is the god of
plenty of it in the form of wet — no easy feat since its the afterlife, while Bennu
clay. Project scientist Dante gravity is 100,000 times less represents the heron and
Lauretta of the University than Earth’s — it will be the creation.q