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Cosmonauts had an unpleasant surprise when they opened the hatch to a spacecraft and had their noses blasted with a foul stench.
The Progress 90 spacecraft was carrying supplies such as food and fuel to the International Space Station (ISS), and had just docked when the stink was revealed.
Before anyone suggests it, no, it had not travelled via Uranus.
Monitoring of air quality on the international space base showed all was well after the scare, but crew had to don protective gear and are still working to be able to unload the cargo.
The routine mission would have been unremarkable, but is now causing questions about what caused the stink.
Ars Technica reported that the incident could be being downplayed, citing Anatoly Zak of Russian Space Web that the smell was ‘toxic’ and so bad that the cosmonauts (Russian astronauts) immediately closed the hatch and activated an air scrubbing system.
US astronaut Don Pettit reportedly said he had smelled an odour similar to ‘spray paint’ in the US segment of the ISS, although it was not clear if this was related.
The cargo craft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday on a Soyuz rocket, in a launch livestreamed by Nasa.
The X account of the International Space Station, run by Nasa, wrote: ‘On November 23, the unpiloted Progress 90 resupply spacecraft successfully docked to the International Space Station’s Poisk module.
‘After opening the Progress spacecraft’s hatch, the Roscosmos cosmonauts noticed an unexpected odor and observed small droplets, prompting the crew to close the Poisk hatch to the rest of the Russian segment.
‘Space station air scrubbers and contaminant sensors monitored the station’s atmosphere following the observation, and on Sunday, flight controllers determined air quality inside the space station was at normal levels.
‘There are no concerns for the crew, and as of Sunday afternoon, the crew is working to open the hatch between Poisk and Progress while all other space station operations are proceeding as planned.’
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