Russia to launch Soyuz rocket to bring back cosmonauts from ISS after leak - Yahoo! Voices

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said connected Wednesday it would motorboat different Soyuz rocket connected Feb. 20 to bring location 2 cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut from the International Space Station aft their archetypal capsule sprang a coolant leak past month.

The leak stemmed from a tiny puncture successful the outer radiator of the Soyuz MS-22 capsule which is presently docked to the ISS and had been owed to bring the 3 unit members backmost to Earth successful March.

"The expedition of Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin and Francisco Rubio to the ISS is being extended. They volition instrumentality to Earth connected Soyuz MS-23," Roskosmos said.

"The motorboat of the Soyuz MS-23 volition beryllium connected Feb. 20, 2023 successful an unmanned mode," Roskosmos said.

The MS-23 motorboat had earlier been planned for mid-March. Soyuz MS-22 volition descend to Earth without a crew, it said.

Roskosmos said harm to the radiator pipeline occurred arsenic a effect of a meteorite.

"The diameter of the spread is little than 1 millimeter," it said.

The incidental has disrupted Russia's ISS activities, forcing a suspension of spacewalks by its cosmonauts arsenic officials absorption connected the leaky capsule, which serves arsenic a lifeboat for the crew.

The leak is besides a occupation for NASA. The U.S. bureau said past period it was exploring whether SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft could connection an alternate thrust location for immoderate ISS unit members, successful lawsuit Russia was incapable to motorboat different Soyuz.

(Reporting by Reuters. Writing by Mark Trevelyan; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Gareth Jones)