Russian Prosecutor General's Office Says May Launch Criminal Case Over Hole In Soyuz Hull

The Russian Prosecutor General's Office continues its investigation into the incident with a hole in the hull of Russian Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft and it considers the possibility of launching a criminal case over the matter, Dmitry Demeshin, the head of the Prosecutor General's Office's department for oversight of execution of laws in the defense industry, said on Wednesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 17th April, 2019) The Russian Prosecutor General's Office continues its investigation into the incident with a hole in the hull of Russian Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft and it considers the possibility of launching a criminal case over the matter, Dmitry Demeshin, the head of the Prosecutor General's Office's department for oversight of execution of laws in the defense industry, said on Wednesday.

"We consider launching a criminal case in order to conduct expert investigations in the best possible way," Demeshin said, as broadcast by the office's video service Efir.

Demeshin specified that the Russian Prosecutor General's Office was currently conducting inquiry into the precise location of the hole in cooperation with other authorities.

On August 30, 2018, the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) detected an insignificant air leak, caused by a microfracture on a wall of the living section of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft, docked to the ISS. The hole was patched on the same day to restore the hermetic integrity of the ISS. Russian State Space Agency Roscosmos set up a special commission to investigate the incident, and the commission concluded in October 2018 that the incident had not been caused by a manufacturing defect.