Backup Soyuz can’t get to ISS before late February - Ars Technica

Beating the vigor —

In the aftermath of a Soyuz coolant loss, NASA and Roscosmos inactive exploring options.

John Timmer - Dec 22, 2022 7:38 p.m. UTC

Enlarge / A Soyuz spacecraft docked astatine the ISS.

Today, NASA held a property briefing to picture the concern connected the International Space Station (ISS) successful the aftermath of a major coolant leak from a Soyuz spacecraft that is docked astatine the station. At the moment, neither NASA nor Roscosmos has a wide representation of its options for utilizing the damaged spacecraft. If it is unusable successful its existent state, past it volition instrumentality until February to get a replacement to the ISS.

Soyuz spacecraft are 1 of 2 vehicles utilized to get humans to and from the ISS, and service arsenic a "lifeboat" successful lawsuit unit are required to evacuate the presumption rapidly. So, portion the leak doesn't spot the ISS oregon its unit successful danger, it cuts the borderline for mistake and tin perchance interfere with aboriginal unit rotations.

As Roscosmos indicated earlier this week, the impressive-looking plume of worldly originated from a millimeter-sized spread successful a coolant radiator. Although the coolant strategy has redundant pumps that could grip failures, the leak resulted successful the nonaccomplishment of each the coolant, truthful there's thing to pump astatine this point.

Sergei Krikalev, the enforcement manager of Roscosmos' Human Space Flight Programs, said the ISS partners already performed an investigation comparing the predisposition of the spread to the apt absorption that immoderate micrometeorite would person travel from. The 2 bash not match, truthful there's nary denotation of however the harm occurred. The coolant poses nary information to the exterior of the ISS.

At the clip of the damage, the adjacent Soyuz motorboat to the ISS was planned for a unit rotation successful mid-March. Krikalev said that could beryllium pushed guardant by a fewer weeks to precocious February, which would get an undamaged lifeboat to the station. Whether that volition transportation a replacement unit oregon not volition beryllium connected whether the damaged capsule is considered harmless capable to instrumentality the existent unit to Earth. (Soyuz tin execute automated docking astatine the station, truthful it tin beryllium sent to the ISS uncrewed.)

At the moment, however, we're inactive unsure astir whether the damaged Soyuz tin safely transportation the unit backmost to Earth successful the lack of a strategy for cooling its interior compartment. "As soon arsenic we commencement to powerfulness up instrumentality and arsenic soon arsenic unit is going to beryllium wrong the unit compartment, temperatures commencement to rise," Krikalev said. "We don't cognize precisely however precocious it's going to [get], and our specialists successful Russia, unneurotic with specialists successful Houston, are going to estimation the complaint of the emergence of the somesthesia and what maximum somesthesia that tin beryllium reached during antithetic modes of reentry."

Those antithetic modes see an enactment that minimizes the magnitude of clip Soyuz remains successful abstraction earlier re-entry. There's besides the enactment of what Krikalev called "analog re-entry," which is fundamentally manual power of the process, allowing immoderate of the interior electronics to beryllium unopen down. Should immoderate of these re-entry options beryllium viable, past the Soyuz astatine the ISS tin fulfill its relation arsenic a lifeboat contempt the damage. Whether "viable successful an emergency" is desirable for a unit rotation is simply a abstracted issue.

"If nominal introduction is dangerous—or not harmless enough, I would say," Krikalev said, "then we volition nonstop a conveyance to person a bully spacecraft for the crew." That conveyance would beryllium empty, meaning an extended enactment connected presumption for the existing crew, and the ISS would beryllium without a lifeboat until it arrived. NASA's Joel Montalbano indicated that, successful this case, the damaged Soyuz would beryllium sent done re-entry bare to let Roscosmos to get information regarding its behavior.

In the meantime, Montalbano said, things are returning to mean connected the ISS, with a spacewalk successful advancement for installing star sheet upgrades. He said the adjacent rotation of US unit is inactive acceptable for a January 9 departure connected a Dragon spacecraft.