Russia reveals plan to rescue three space station crewmates - Digital Trends

Russian abstraction bureau Roscosmos volition nonstop an bare spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) successful precocious February to bring location 3 crewmembers — Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin, and Francisco Rubio

The bureau has been considering respective options aft the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft sustained a leak successful December portion it was docked astatine the ISS, causing the conveyance to lose a ample magnitude of coolant.

Following an investigation, Russian officials deemed a instrumentality thrust successful the damaged capsule excessively risky for the 3 crewmembers, arsenic the somesthesia and humidity could emergence to intolerable levels without the coolant. It volition truthful nonstop different Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS connected February 20, and bring location the presently docked conveyance for inspection.

Commenting during a media briefing connected Wednesday, Yuri Borisov, the caput of Roscosmos, said: “Having analyzed the information of the spacecraft, thermal calculations, and method documentation, it has been concluded that the MS-22 indispensable beryllium landed without a unit connected board.”

The caller program volition origin immoderate disruption to the archetypal schedule. The incoming spacecraft, Soyuz MS-23, was expected to bring cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, arsenic good arsenic NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, to the presumption successful March, but for present they’ll enactment connected terra firma, portion Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio volition stay connected the ISS, astir apt for astatine slightest respective months beyond their archetypal March instrumentality date. The concern could besides interaction NASA’s timing for the SpaceX Crew-6 flight, which is presently acceptable for mid-February.

Besides acting arsenic a thrust home, the spacecraft docked astatine the ISS besides acts arsenic an exigency flight conveyance should immoderate benignant of calamity endanger the orbital outpost. In that case, it’s imaginable the 3 crewmembers could participate the damaged spacecraft for refuge, though Roscosmos is inactive looking into the feasibility of specified a procedure.

At the existent time, 2 spacecraft are docked astatine the ISS — the damaged Soyuz and a SpaceX Crew Dragon that brought 2 Americans, 1 Japanese astronaut, and 1 Russian to the presumption successful October. Last week, it was suggested that the Crew Dragon could beryllium utilized to bring location each 7 astronauts astatine the extremity of their mission, though this enactment present appears to person been shelved.

Roscosmos said the results of its probe suggest the leak was caused by a micrometeoroid striking the Soyuz capsule astatine precocious speed.

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