During the night of 29 August 2018, a small air leak in the ISS was noticed by ground control. A hole in the
orbital module was discovered, later stated to have been "hidden with a low-quality patch job". Russian crew members used
Kapton tape to temporarily seal the leak while a permanent fix was devised. The leak was successfully sealed with the use of a repair kit based on an
epoxy sealant, and no further changes in air pressure were noted as of 31 August. On 4 September 2018, it was announced that the hole was created by a drill, but it was unclear if it was accidental or deliberate. Russian officials indicated the hole was some kind of sabotage, perhaps during the module's manufacturing process. On 11 December 2018,
Oleg Kononenko and
Sergey Prokopyev conducted an
EVA, cutting into the thermal blankets and pulling away insulation in order to examine the external hull, take images of the area and retrieve samples of residue to be used in the investigation. As the hole was in the orbital module that is jettisoned before re-entry, the return flight was not endangered. The return of the crew was briefly delayed by the launch failure of
Soyuz MS-10 (until the arrival of the next crew on ). landed on 20 December at about 05:03UTC. Prokopyev was quoted as saying that the drill hole was made from the inside, but it is unclear when it was made. According to NASA officials, they know exactly when the leak began and no US astronauts were reportedly near the Russian segment, where the Soyuz was docked. In September 2019, the head of Roscosmos,
Dmitry Rogozin, claimed that Roscosmos knows exactly what happened but that the agency would keep this information secret. On 20 April 2021, major Russian language tabloid
Moskovskij Komsomolets published an article citing a Facebook post by Vadim Lukashevich which claimed that the hole was drilled by
Serena Auñón-Chancellor, after a
blood clot developed in her
jugular vein (a medical case which did occur), which was disputed by NASA and called "preposterous" by
Ars Technica. The results of a Roscosmos investigation were later handed over to "law enforcement authorities" in late 2021, with state media promoting a new theory: that Auñón-Chancellor drilled the hole while "due to suffering [psychologically] after a failed romantic relationship with one of the crew members". == References ==