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

Cosmonauts aboard the Russian segment of the station donned protective equipment.

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[Faceless Man]

As has been mentioned, bootlegging vodka aboard.

If some Russian vodka smells like some kind of solvent (and that's entirely possible) then it's also possible that the usual method of getting booze to the Russian side of the ISS (assuming that's what it was) could be breaking down as more of the Russian economy is stripped of resources and funding to pay for war equipment, etc.

So, hypothetically speaking, a certain favored brand of vodka has been made a certain way, and packaged a certain way for a long time, and was reliable in getting from Earth to the ISS intact, and undetected. But with the Ukrainian war ongoing, impacting Russia's economy, it may be that the bottles are being sourced from a lower quality manufacturer, or the resources for them (for whatever reason) have diminished in quality, or the increasingly shoddy workmanship on the Progress space craft creates far more vibrations on launch and in flight.

Either or both (or neither) could account for a bottle of bootleg hootch to break, accounting for the liquid found and the smell. If the vodka got into something else in the shipment, that may have exacerbated the smell.

I seem to recall a story from back in the day about Russians drinking on their own space stations in the past, so it's probably not unprecedented. It's just the quality of products coming from Russia might well be diminishing to the point that what used to ship without any leakage broke on the most recent trip up there.

If they're not dying right now, it's probably not toxic. And I imagine the air scrubbers can handle the residue. It would also account for their being very tight-lipped about the whole thing, likely because it probably isn't common knowledge among the people in Russia that they drink in space, and get vodka shipped to them via the world's most expensive means of delivery.

Wouldn't it be easier to just make the alcohol in orbit? They have all the ingredients they need, and building a still in near vacuum shouldn't be too hard...

I mean, we've heard about what US astronauts used to do with Tang, haven't we?

I'd want to check that nothing had crawled into the module and died. I know the smell doesn't seem right, but with the general funk of the ISS, and so forth, who knows?

 

[uno2tres]

TFA mentioned "droplets", that would IMHO imply a bit more than just off‑gassing from some coating. IANAE, though.

Intense shaking followed by microgravity seems like a plausible mechanism for liquids pooling in crevasses or sweating off surfaces to become airborne droplets.

 

[Mechjaz]

Moonshine vodka delivery? I've endured enough of samogon in Russia a decade or two ago, and some of it indeed smelled like paint thinner ;-)

Jokes aside, any petrol‑like smell isn't really ideal, whatever it is. Most similarly smelling compounds also rate as not nice in the fire and explosive danger charts. Probably still better than explosive, flammable and toxic MMH leak, of course, but not that much...

"Please note the flight commander has lit the 'No Smoking' sign in the cabin."

 

[Uncivil Servant]

Nope. I would not be surprised if it was another cooling system leak, but there's no concrete information.

Look, I know rationally that this is the most likely solution here, but anytime we're dealing with an empty space capsule and suspicious circumstances and smells, have we ruled out dead, decaying xenomorphs?

Or possibly opossums? Xenopossums?

I'm just saying, if sci-fi has taught us anything it's that anything can be a stowaway on a space capsule.

 

[Uncivil Servant]

Borscht is a Ukrainian dish, not Russian.

Remember Maria Zakharova's drunken tirade in the early days of the "Special Operation", in which she tried to justify committing genocide because Ukraine "couldn't share their borscht".

It was also popular among Ashkenazim of my grandparents' generation and older. I'm pretty sure "here kids, have some beet soup" was basically the Eastern European version of peanut butter sandwiches or the many ways to cook potatoes.

 

[Uncivil Servant]

When I saw that they were launching a supply mission from Russia I couldn't believe it. Why are we allowing this with everything going on. There has to be a way that SpaceX could have stepped up and covered their portion of the agreement for supply. How long before Putin decides that a catastrophe is what's needed there?

I absolutely hate having to say this phrase: it would be nice if they could display the probity and morality of Formula One.

(at least Haas got rid of their oligarch sponsor and their driver the day the invasion began)

 

[deepblueskies]

When I saw that they were launching a supply mission from Russia I couldn't believe it. Why are we allowing this with everything going on. There has to be a way that SpaceX could have stepped up and covered their portion of the agreement for supply. How long before Putin decides that a catastrophe is what's needed there?

At minimum, they supply their own Cosmonauts and their side of the station.

 

[Chuckstar]

Borscht is a Ukrainian dish, not Russian.

Remember Maria Zakharova's drunken tirade in the early days of the "Special Operation", in which she tried to justify committing genocide because Ukraine "couldn't share their borscht".

The beet soup we think of as borscht in the west is the Ukrainian style of borscht. Borscht encompasses a broader range of soups, though, from a quite wide geography of Eastern Europe and into Asia.

 

[geekstrada]

Which is the form that does have a noticeable odor, is still really toxic, but back in the 1960s at NASA they used to pass around a mug of the stuff so technicians would know what it smells like to know to stay away from it.

The reason for this flagrantly stupid process is because it was the 1960s. The era of rocket ships, gasoline-powered pogo sticks ("if you're not ready for it it'll break your ankles"), and fire extinguishers made with carbon tetrachloride, a chemical so carcinogenic that it was used to induce cancer in rats for cancer research

1960s you say? I worked at a very large and well-known chemical company where an old chemist would "mouth pipette" all sorts of horrendous things in the early 2000s. I can only guess there is someone out there still doing it, safety and health be damned.

 

[pcwag33@gmail.com]

Need to know who was the last one to be in that compartment and when. Remember the mysterious drilled hole they previously found. Is there spray paint in the ISS stocks? Did somebody spray paint something, or to cover a drilled hole in there?

 

[Madestjohn]

This has definitely been a growing trend
and distinctly worried it isn’t going to end well

 

[Frank OBrien]

Moonshine vodka delivery? I've endured enough of samogon in Russia a decade or two ago, and some of it indeed smelled like paint thinner ;-)

Vodka? Unlikely. It has been known for some time that the Mir astronauts drank cognac, not vodka during their missions. And yes, they asked their visiting crewmembers to join them, and many did. It was drunk in very small quantities, usually less than a shot, so no one was worried about being intoxicated.

(and yes, I know you were being a bit silly here....)

The social bonds that form (on Earth and in space) over food and drink are universal. Perhaps NASA will learn to embrace this fact as most other countries have.

 

[BruceTheLoon]

Anyone know what FlexSeal smells like? Or the Russian equivalent. Could be the can sent up to fix the leaks popped open during takeoff.

 

[Deranged]

The fact that it leaked into the pressurized interior of the spacecraft rules out most of the nasties like hydrazine. It'll have to be something related to climate control to be inside the pressure hull, so your coolant guess seems rather likely.

Does it, though? I mean, considering what russian technicians have come up with previously on their space craft, like drilling holes, installing gyros upside down with a sledgehammer and what not.

 

[ranthog]

Does it, though? I mean, considering what russian technicians have come up with previously on their space craft, like drilling holes, installing gyros upside down with a sledgehammer and what not.

Yes it does. The real nasty stuff generally don't pipe through the pressurized parts of the hull for a reason. They're generally in the part of the vehicle held at vacuum. It wouldn't surprise me if those systems leaked, such as what we saw with the coolant loop, but they would leak to space.

It is far more likely that this came from some part of the cargo. Possibly from an experiment.

 

[Malmesbury]

I'm vaguely nostalgic for the days when any Ars story about Russian space activities included a photo of tiny hard hat Rogozin. Not enough to want the buffoon given any sort of real authority again, mind you, but that image always makes me smile.

References to war crimes and trampolines, in such articles, should be mandatory.

 

[Cthel]

Wouldn't it be easier to just make the alcohol in orbit? They have all the ingredients they need, and building a still in near vacuum shouldn't be too hard...

I mean, we've heard about what US astronauts used to do with Tang, haven't we?

I'd want to check that nothing had crawled into the module and died. I know the smell doesn't seem right, but with the general funk of the ISS, and so forth, who knows?

Building a zero-g still sounds like a challenge, no matter what pressure you're operating at - you can't use convection to transport the vapour phase to the condenser, and you can't use gravity to collect the condensate.

Unless you were proposing a centrifuge-mounted still?

 

[taxythingy]

Which is the form that does have a noticeable odor, is still really toxic, but back in the 1960s at NASA they used to pass around a mug of the stuff so technicians would know what it smells like to know to stay away from it.

The reason for this flagrantly stupid process is because it was the 1960s. The era of rocket ships, gasoline-powered pogo sticks ("if you're not ready for it it'll break your ankles"), and fire extinguishers made with carbon tetrachloride, a chemical so carcinogenic that it was used to induce cancer in rats for cancer research

Yeah, about that carbon tetrachloride. It's only somewhat carcinogenic, but it is extremely toxic to the liver and kidneys. Worse is to come for those putting it in a fire extinguisher, however. While it seems like a good idea, as it is quite good at putting out fires, when mixed with air and heat - a somewhat likely condition when fighting fires - it breaks down. Sometimes chemicals spontaneously rearranging themselves is helpful, such as when we send a rocket up to the Internation Space Station, or quietly and rapidly repairing a damaged ornament before someone notices. Sometimes, however, it is not. In this case, while the unsuspecting person is doing a good thing by trying to put out a fire, the carbon tetrachloride is busy breaking down into phosgene, a thing most notably remembered for its use as a chemical weapon during WW1. If that's not where you know it from, you probably work in plastics manufacturing.

Had the unpleasant experience of needing to work with carbon tetrachloride when Freon wasn't available for a short while. It's one of the few solvents that is both liquid at room temperature and doesn't have any carbon-hydrogen bonds, making it particularly useful for analysing samples for said bonds in an FTIR.

 

[JoHBE]

Highly symbolic: these regimes corrode and enshittify EVERYTHING. You even can't escape from it into space.

 

[JoHBE]

The reason for this flagrantly stupid process is because it was the 1960s. The era of rocket ships, gasoline-powered pogo sticks ("if you're not ready for it it'll break your ankles"), and fire extinguishers made with carbon tetrachloride, a chemical so carcinogenic that it was used to induce cancer in rats for cancer research

Oh, those great times will return soon enough...

 

[A_Very_Tired_Geek]

Could also be related to improperly cured coatings or adhesives.

This is the most likely explanation. Coatings take time to cure. Even "odorless" ones tend to have a unique smell from the VoCs; it's just not a strong one till you're in an enclosed area without ventilation. There's nothing more "enclosed" than a sealed environment surrounded by vacuum. The off gassing will continue till the coatings cure. The onboard filtration will have to do because the astronauts can't just roll down the windows.

My guess is that world famous Russian quality control strikes again.

Edit to add: Since I'm sure not every one knows, "dry" and "cure" are two different things. A coating is "dry" when it can't be damaged easily by touching it. A coating has "cured" when its reached its maximum integrity. They can dry in minutes, but take hours, days, or months to cure. The coatings on a typical vehicle takes hours to dry in an oven ( modern vehicle paint jobs are baked on ). But they take a month to cure and reach their full integrity (scratch resistance). During the entire process they're emitting VoCs from the solvents used to keep them liquid.

Even the oil paints artists use that are supposedly "odorless" will drive nearly anyone nuts in an enclosed room without a window open. The ones used in industrial processes like this are far stronger. It appears whatever was in that capsule wasn't given sufficient time to cure before being sealed up. Plastics that make up the containers will have the same problem as coatings. Delrin never stops outgassing, for example. So it's either the coatings or the plastic containers that are emitting because of insufficient curing or insufficient quality oversight in Russia. Again.

 

[CannonFodder314159]

1960s you say? I worked at a very large and well-known chemical company where an old chemist would "mouth pipette" all sorts of horrendous things in the early 2000s. I can only guess there is someone out there still doing it, safety and health be damned.

My first day as chem lab manager at a water analysis lab in 2013, I had to threaten to fire one of the old chemists for mouth pipetting. (He was only pipetting sodium carbonate solution, but had picked up the pipette from a bench stained with potassium dichromate)

 

[CannonFodder314159]

I did some digging, and if the Internet is to be trusted, the Progess has two coolant loops. The external loop (the one that leaked before) is filled with iso-octane (LZ-TK-2). That, unsurprisingly, smells very much like gasoline. Not exactly like spray paint, but maybe...

The internal loop uses "a non-toxic aqueous solution of glycerin with anti-corrosion additives" - if it has any smell, it's from the additives. Not clear what those additives are but I'd guess they're water-soluble and dont' smell much like paint.

I'm not sure what sequence of events would let the external coolant into the internal air compartment without also depressurizing the compartment... ?

Other suspects?

First a caveat: I have worked analysing water from heating and cooling systems for many years, but these were all earthbound and non-soviet. The following are semi-educated guesses.

I would expect that the internal loop anti-corrosion additives would include some kind of organic film-forming inhibitors which may well be aromatics and could give rise to the smell. If it's expected that the coolant will transition to vapour phase amines are often used which can smell interesting too.

 

[TakeItOrLeaveIt]

It could be something leaking from the cargo payload. The nature of the cooling fluid inside the Progress does not produce a "spray paint" odor.

The "fuel" aspect of three tons of food, fuel, and supplies would seem like a likely place to start though the first thing is be asking the astronaut saying spray paint would be what kind. Given that astronauts might be visiting factories, the range of spray paint odor they may have experienced in life is huge. Of course, "supplies" could also include things like cleaning fluids, disinfectants, etc.

What bugs me though is, if you've had leaks in these things before, wouldn't you have developed safety precautions for the opening process? Maybe even opening with a hazmat suit on? Some type of video probe? At least crack the hatch for a moment, immediately reclose it, and sniff the air for any new odor rather than a full on entry? I thought this was the realm of constant procedures.

 

[Ralf The Dog]

This is not one of my fields of expertise so, I probably don't know what I am talking about.

Is there any chance that some wiring might have gotten hot enough to melt a bit, but not hot enough to burn? Could a capacitor or some other electrical component had a bad day?

 

[launcap]

This is the most likely explanation. Coatings take time to cure. Even "odorless" ones tend to have a unique smell from the VoCs

We had an 80% wool carpet fitted in the lounge a month or two back. The lounge still smells slightly of sheep when you go in there in the morning..

 

[Arrakeen]

Which is the form that does have a noticeable odor, is still really toxic, but back in the 1960s at NASA they used to pass around a mug of the stuff so technicians would know what it smells like to know to stay away from it.

The reason for this flagrantly stupid process is because it was the 1960s. The era of rocket ships, gasoline-powered pogo sticks ("if you're not ready for it it'll break your ankles"), and fire extinguishers made with carbon tetrachloride, a chemical so carcinogenic that it was used to induce cancer in rats for cancer research

Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) still is used in research - I've used it myself in rat studies to induce HCC just a few years ago. From what I've read, it used to be in all sorts of stuff (like cleaners, refrigerants, and lava lamps) before it got banned (in the 80s, I seem to recall). Not the craziest stuff I've worked with, but you definitely want some extra protective measures in place.

 

[EllPeaTea]

The "fuel" aspect of three tons of food, fuel, and supplies would seem like a likely place to start though the first thing is be asking the astronaut saying spray paint would be what kind. Given that astronauts might be visiting factories, the range of spray paint odor they may have experienced in life is huge. Of course, "supplies" could also include things like cleaning fluids, disinfectants, etc.

What bugs me though is, if you've had leaks in these things before, wouldn't you have developed safety precautions for the opening process? Maybe even opening with a hazmat suit on? Some type of video probe? At least crack the hatch for a moment, immediately reclose it, and sniff the air for any new odor rather than a full on entry? I thought this was the realm of constant procedures.

The fuel isn't shipped inside the main pressure vessel. It's in the service module. The russian docking adapters are capable of transferring fuel, and the lines for that are also outside the main pressure vessel.