Russians Blame U.S. Female Astronaut For Leak In The International Space Station in 2018 - Part 2 of 2 Parts

Russians Blame U.S. Female Astronaut For Leak In The International Space Station in 2018 - Part 2 of 2 Parts

Part 2 of 2 Parts (Please read Part 1 first)
     An unnamed “high ranking” Russian official with Roscosmos, the Russian Space Agency, made a startling claim in Tass, the Russian news agency on August 12th of this year. Tass reported that the official claimed that Auñón-Chancellor, an American astronaut assigned to the International Space Station had suffered an emotional breakdown in 2018 which caused her to sabotage the Russian Soyuz spacecraft in the hope that she would be able to return to Earth before her mission was done. The Tass article claimed that the NASA videos of the U.S. astronauts may have been tampered with. They also claimed that the Russian officials were denied the opportunity to examine Russian tools on the ISS and to administer polygraph tests to the astronauts who were on the ISS at the time of the leak.
     The article in TASS was published on August 12th and seen as a response to U.S. criticism of the Russian participation in the ISS regarding the near-disastrous incident involving the Russian Nauka science module and the ISS earlier in August. In the article, a Russian journalist named Mikhail Kotov interviewed an anonymous Russian official at Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. The article names Auñón-Chancellor, the only woman on the ISS at the time, and gives details of a medical problem that she suffered while on the ISS. It is normal practice for NASA to keep all medical records and conditions of astronauts private.
     When Auñón-Chancellor returned to Earth, she was treated for a deep vein thrombosis in the jugular vein in her neck. In the Tass article, Kotov implied that dealing with such a condition is space could have motivated her to desire leaving the ISS prematurely. Supposedly, this led to her sabotaging the Soyuz spacecraft.
     Kathy Lueders is the NASA head of human spaceflight. She participated in a media teleconference with respect to delays in the launch of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft on Friday, August 13th. She told reporters that the personal attacks against NASA astronaut and flight engineer Auñón-Chancellor being made by Roscosmos were baseless. She said, “Serena is an extremely well-respected crew member who has served her country and made invaluable contributions to the agency. And I stand behind Serena — we stand behind Serena and her professional conduct and I did not find this accusation credible.” Lueders expressed those same sentiments on Twitter Friday afternoon. Bill Nelson is the new head of NASA. He agreed with Lueders, Tweeting, “I wholeheartedly agree with Kathy's statement. I fully support Serena and I will always stand behind our astronauts.”
     The comments by the NASA officials were a response to the TASS article and other Russian statements that attacked Auñón-Chancellor. In the past few years, there have been a number of accidents involving Russian modules and the ISS. Loss of control of thrusters during launch and docking have caused problems but, fortunately none have been serious. As much as NASA would like to continue working with the Russians at the ISS, this developing string of technical difficulties have called into question the safety of the Russian space technology associated with the ISS.