SPACE: For the third time in a year, Russian hardware on the space station is leaking.

The problems with leaky radiators began about 10 months ago.

On December 14, 2022, as two cosmonauts were preparing to conduct a spacewalk outside the space station, the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft docked nearby began to leak uncontrollably from its external cooling loop. This Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft had been due to bring cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, as well as NASA’s Frank Rubio, back to Earth in March. A replacement vehicle had to be sent up to bring them home, and they landed safely last month.

Additionally, on February 11, 2023, the Progress MS-21 supply ship attached to the International Space Station lost pressure in its external cooling system. Once again, all of the coolant on board a Russian spacecraft leaked into space due to a rupture. This vehicle, which had been docked to the ISS since October, later detached and returned to Earth’s atmosphere without incident.

After these problems, Russian officials blamed both of these coolant system leaks on “an external impact,” pointing toward a micrometeorite or small fragment of orbital debris as the cause. Although privately some NASA officials questioned whether both of these leaks really were caused by impacts in space, rather than technical defects with the hardware, publicly the US space agency has gone along with the explanation.

But then Monday’s incident happened.

Russian gear isn’t known as the most reliable but this is ridiculous.