After Russian ship docks to space station, astronauts report a foul smell

It should have been a routine mission to ferry about three tons of food, fuel, and supplies to the International Space Station, but when Russian cosmonauts opened the hatch to a cargo spacecraft on Saturday, they got a surprise—a toxic smell. "After opening the Progress spacecraft's hatch, the Roscosmos cosmonauts noticed an unexpected odor and observed small droplets, prompting the crew to close the Poisk hatch to the rest of the Russian segment," NASA said in a statement on Sunday. According to the space agency, air scrubbers and contaminant sensors on board the orbiting laboratory monitored the station’s atmosphere following the observation of the aberrant smell. By Sunday, flight controllers in Mission Control in Houston determined air quality inside the space station was at normal levels. However, the US space agency may be slightly downplaying the seriousness of the event. According to Anatoly Zak of Russian Space Web, a reliable independent website, the smell was "toxic" and prompted the Russian cosmonauts to immediately close the hatch leading to the Progress spacecraft that launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday.

Russian space program faces ongoing challenges

Zak reported that the cosmonauts aboard the Russian segment of the station donned protective equipment and activated an extra air-scrubbing system aboard their side of the facility. On the US segment of the station, NASA astronaut Don Pettit said he smelled something akin to "spray paint." As of Sunday afternoon, NASA said there were no concerns for the crew and that astronauts were working to open the hatch between the Poisk module and the Progress spacecraft. Attached to the space station in 2009, Poisk is a small element that connects to one of four docking ports on the Russian segment of the station. It was not immediately clear what caused the foul odor to emanate from the Progress vehicle, however previous Russian vehicles have had leaks while in space. Most recently, in February 2023, a Progress vehicle attached to the station lost pressurization in its cooling system. Facing financial and staffing pressures due to the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine, the main Russian space corporation, Roscosmos, has faced a series of technical problems as it has sought to fly people and supplies to the International Space Station in recent years.