MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th April, 2021) The malfunction during the docking of Russia's Progress MS-16 cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station in February was caused by the low-quality resin used to make the Soyuz launch vehicle's nose fairing, a space industry source has told Sputnik.
Progress MS-16 was supposed to dock at Russia's Pirs compartment in an automatic mode on February 17, however, the process had to be performed in a manual mode because the cargo spacecraft deviated too much from the intended trajectory. Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov successfully performed the manual docking of the spacecraft. Later, a commission to investigate the incident was set up by the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
"Video cameras installed on the Soyuz 2.1a rocket's nose cone, have shown a comprehensive picture. The commission has found out that non-durable resin from a third-party supplier was used in the manufacturing of nose fairings," the source said.
According to the source, the quality control has been tightened as a result, per the commission's recommendations.
"Also, they have improved the already manufactured nose cones, and this construction feature will be changed during the production of new ones," the source added.
The upgrade is said to have no impact on the schedule for the next launches.
The source mentioned that the resin in question was used not only in the sizing of the nose cone's inner surface but also in the production of some automatic spacecraft.
