Russia And The Rest Of The World Waits To Find Out Space Station Leak Cause

The International Space Station is leaking, and Russia knows what happened.

Dmitry Rogozin, space agency chief of Russia's space agency, said that the hole in the space station-which caused an air leak-wasn't of natural causes. It was thought that a meteorite hit the space station, creating the hole. The space agency chief thought it wasn't entirely natural; he said that it was deliberately created by a saboteur, NBC News reports.

When interviewed, the Russian space chief said they were looking at all possibilities. The meteorite impact theory, as viewed by some, was discarded because the agency thought that the hole looked suspiciously artificial. The thought of the Russian agency was that it was 'impacted from inside' and that it was evident, from the traces, that the drill that caused it slid along the surface of the spacecraft.

This theory, if proven true, could cause controversy. The Russian space agency, for their part, clearly believes their theory all the way enough to conduct an investigation. They're looking for the saboteur's identity; their reason for drilling the hole, and where it happened, whether it was done by an astronaut in space or if it was created by a ground crew.

The hole, a 2-millimeter breach in the Soyuz MS-09, was discovered as the spacecraft docked in the Russian sector of the ISS. Rogozin, according to NPR, isn't abandoning the idea that this may be a deliberate act. However, according to other theories, Rogozin is also open to the possibility of accident-the drill marks, he said, seems to have been created by 'a faltering hand,' suggesting an oversight on the part of a Russian specialist.

NASA, for its part, wasn't keen to comment on the report. It was confident enough to wait for the results of a report coming from a commission created to look into the incident. The hole, on Thursday, was already sealed at the time of discussions.

Maxim Surayev, a former Russian cosmonaut, said that it could've been a deliberate sabotage by an Earth-sick astronaut. He said that what the hole did to the mission and to the spacecraft necessitated an early return to the Russian cosmodrome-which solves the problem of homesickness if that ever was the cause. Another likely culprit could be a 'production defect' as a result of hasty manufacturing.

Surayev, for his part, laments the incident. He said that with all his experiences with Soyuz spacecraft, this has been the first time ever such a thing would happen if it turned out to be true.