“We threatened to put astronauts in suits, in Dragon, to send a message to the world that we didn’t agree,” a NASA official told Ars. “They didn’t care.”
Reach a resolution
The standoff continued into Friday morning, when the Russian astronauts appeared to backtrack on their plans, only to later approach the PrK module with a saw and intend to remove a cargo support. Meanwhile, Roscosmos officials continued to ignore communication with NASA officials on the ground.
At this point, NASA directed Crew 12: American astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, French astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev toward SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. Freedom spacecraft, along with American astronaut Chris Williams, who had flown to the station on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
“We felt there was a very high probability that a bad outcome would occur if they cut that support,” a NASA source said. NASA’s decision to send its astronauts to a safe haven led Roscosmos to finally back down.
In the days since, there have been some additional exchanges, but Russia has now told NASA that it will dismantle the PrK module.
Effectively, this means that cosmonauts will no longer enter the PrK module or attempt to pressurize it. Progress vehicles will still be able to use the docking port to transfer fluids or perform other functions, but Russia will need to use other ports to move supplies aboard the space station.
For NASA and the longevity of the space station, this agreement with Russia represents an important step forward. For years, NASA has reluctantly accepted the risk of rapid depressurization aboard the space station due to problems in the PrK module. Now that risk should be eliminated.
