MOSCOW. Feb 13 (Interfax) - Roscosmos on Monday showed an image showing the place of leak which appeared in the external thermal control system of the Soyuz MS-22 ship in December 2022.
"The presence of this hole proves the cause of what happened: external damage," a Roscosmos statement said.
The still is showing a hole and damage to the external sheathing of the spacecraft's service module. The image was taken by a camera on the robotic arm installed on the United States' segment of the International Space Station (ISS), the Russian state corporation said.
On December 15, 2022 Roscosmos said that a spacewalk by the ISS' Russian crew was cancelled because the ship's external radiator was leaking air. On January 11 Roscosmos chief Yury Borisov said the findings confirmed that the damage had been caused by a meteoroid. The diameter of the hole was up to one millimeter, presumably, breached by a speeding element of space junk. It is expected that the damaged Soyuz MS-22 would descend to Earth in unmanned mode.