Russia to Launch Space Station Rescue Mission to Bring Astronauts Home - The New York Times

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Science|Russia to Launch Space Station Rescue Mission to Bring Astronauts Home

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/science/nasa-space-station-soyuz.html

The capsule that carried 3 astronauts to orbit was damaged successful December and volition beryllium replaced by different Soyuz spacecraft.

A spacecraft connected to a module of the International Space Station orbits Earth. Various crushed  and h2o  features are disposable   beneath  the spacecraft.
A spacewalk by 2 Russian astronauts was canceled astatine the past infinitesimal successful December aft ngo controllers noticed a spray of particles leaking from the attached Soyuz spacecraft.Credit...Sergei Korsakov/Roscosmos State Space Corporation, via Associated Press

Kenneth Chang

Jan. 11, 2023Updated 10:12 a.m. ET

Russia connected Wednesday said it would nonstop an bare spacecraft to the International Space Station to bring 3 astronauts backmost to Earth. The spacecraft volition regenerate a damaged Soyuz capsule that is docked to the orbital outpost.

The determination volition widen the enactment successful abstraction of the 3 astronauts, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitriy Petelin of Russia and Frank Rubio of NASA, who were to instrumentality successful the Soyuz. The damaged vas volition instrumentality to Earth empty.

The Soyuz is the lone spacecraft presently utilized by Russia to transport astronauts to and from the I.S.S. On Dec. 14, a spray of achromatic particles started spewing retired of a Soyuz that had been docked to the orbital basal since September. The incidental occurred conscionable arsenic Mr. Prokopyev and Mr. Petelin were astir to statesman a spacewalk. The spacewalk was canceled. The achromatic particles were coolant from the Soyuz, and the leak continued for hours until the damaged cooling loop was empty.

Image

A inactive representation taken from a NASA video provender showed a spray of coolant emitting from the Soyuz spacecraft.Credit...NASA TV, via Reuters

Since then, astronauts utilized a camera astatine the extremity of a robotic limb connected the abstraction presumption to inspect the leak arsenic engineers connected the crushed studied whether the Soyuz was inactive harmless capable for passengers to alert home.

On Wednesday, Roscosmos, the authorities corp that oversees Russia’s abstraction industry, announced that the damaged Soyuz would instrumentality to Earth with nary unit aboard. The bare replacement Soyuz is expected to motorboat connected Feb. 20.

Roscosmos said the probe concluded that the harm was caused by a meteoroid strike.

Four different astronauts are presently aboard the International Space Station. They were brought determination by Crew Dragon, a capsule built by SpaceX that carries NASA crews to orbit.

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