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A tweet by @NASASpaceflight (Chris B - NSF, "Managing Editor of NASASpaceFlight.com" says:

ISS Leak summary:

First thought was MMOD strike.

Then NASA released pics. Lots of people: "Hmmm, doesn't look like MMOD". NASA deleted the photos. (emphasis added)

Top Russian news site RIA NOVOSTI reported - via sources but apparently confirmed by Mr. Rogozin - it was a drill hole.

and shows this photo (cropped, original available at https://i.stack.imgur.com/rhZn8.jpg as well as in the linked tweet).

Question: Did NASA "publish", then "delete" this and other photos of the ISS leak? If so, where did these actions occur? (note: I'm only asking this.)

The appearance certainly contrasts with the file photo shown in the earlier tweet by Chris Hadfield (discussed in Is there, or has there ever been anything remotely like an electron microscope in space?), which says "When your spaceship suddenly starts leaking air..." (emphasis added)

A question about how "sudden" the leak was would be an excellent follow-up.

enter image description here

I first read about the @NASASpaceflight tweet in The Guardian's Station Space station air leak: someone drilled the hole, say Russians:

The article is worth reading in its entirety. This is a snippet:

Dmitry Rogozin said the hole detected last Thursday in a Russian Soyuz module docked at the ISS was caused by a drill and could have been done deliberately, either back on Earth or by someone in orbit.

“There were several attempts at drilling,” Rogozin said late on Monday in televised comments, adding that the drill appeared to have been held by a “wavering hand”.

“What is this: a production defect or some premeditated actions?” he asked. “We are checking the Earth version. But there is another version that we do not rule out: deliberate interference in space.”

See also Phys.org's Russia says space station leak may be sabotage, which includes the following snippet:

A space industry source told TASS that the spacecraft could have been damaged during testing at Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan after passing initial checks and the mistake was then hastily covered up.

"Someone messed up and then got scared and sealed up the hole," the source speculated, but then the sealant "dried up and fell off" when the Soyuz reached the ISS.

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  • @MagicOctopusUrn Since the question is about deleted photos I cached the original with Stack Exchange's imgur function. Don't ignore the 2nd half of the sentence: "(cropped, original available at https://i.stack.imgur.com/rhZn8.jpg as well as in the linked tweet)" – uhoh Sep 05 '18 at 04:21
  • The oldest, even with the original, I can find using easy methods was 4 days ago (no more specific timestamps given) at https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/tag/mmod/ sorry... missed that second link with the original aspect ratio (1200x673). – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 05 '18 at 04:28
  • Could always ask the author where his original photo came from, as this is a more established news outlet than the average random blog, it may be a different source than your twitter post (September 3rd). – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 05 '18 at 04:53
  • The image shown in https://space.stackexchange.com/q/30388/26446 doesn't jive with the one shown here. That one shows a mound of (presumably molten) material extruded around the circumference of the hole, very circular, and is about 0.5 cm. This hole is flush with the surrounding material, irregular, has nearby scratches, and is > 1 cm. Are these supposed to be pictures of the same hole? – DrSheldon Sep 05 '18 at 11:14
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    I suppose NASA and Roscosmos have mutual agreement to not address negative issues of the partner in public media. I don't know if the agreement itself is public or not.. – Heopps Sep 05 '18 at 11:20
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    @DrSheldon this is why I have referred to that image both there, and here, as a "file photo". It was never represented as an image of the current hole, because of course it is an image from an electron microscope, and as far as I know, there are no electron microscopes on the ISS, much less one that can operate in the atmosphere. If you look at the first sentence I wrote in your linked question, I've called it an "an old file photo". – uhoh Sep 05 '18 at 12:46
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    @DrSheldon that's actually a 2006 picture of an SMM hole-- as sourced by wikipedia archives. Funny... a band used it as their cover album in 2014, and people are yelling all over twitter about how NASA is faking the picture of the hole with an album cover... If you scroll down in the twitter comments (before they get too inane) Hadfield mentions it's a file photo and gives the timestamp/source. (Sorry to reiterate, but I've added a timestamp and source). – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 05 '18 at 18:03
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    @MagicOctopusUrn: Thank you for the clarification! – DrSheldon Sep 05 '18 at 18:15
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    @MagicOctopusUrn I really wish I hadn't read the tweet replies... Some peoples logical inability astounds me – Ezra Bailey Sep 17 '18 at 13:55
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    @SarahBailey I'm at the point where things like that honestly don't surprise me anymore, it scares me most that it's becoming so mainstream... I'm hoping we're just seeing more of it nowadays due to technology, not that everyone is genuinely becoming dumber or more unwilling to help themselves learn... – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 17 '18 at 14:26
  • @MagicOctopusUrn Except for in Norway, it doesn't seem (yet) that people are getting dumber: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-06/humanity-keeps-getting-smarter – called2voyage Sep 17 '18 at 17:21
  • @called2voyage it's quite unfortunate that the linked article raises more questions than it answers, that's quite odd! Then again I could absolutely see a life of simplicity somewhere as beautiful as Norway. – Magic Octopus Urn Sep 17 '18 at 17:29
  • @DrSheldon I just ran across this https://youtu.be/S6vqYUBoe3g?t=172 and thought you'd enjoy it – uhoh Oct 20 '18 at 05:31

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