SpaceX Could Help Bring Back Astronauts Stranded on ISS - Gizmodo

NASA whitethorn crook to its commercialized spouse SpaceX to transport 3 astronauts backmost to Earth aft a Russian Soyuz spacecraft suffered a coolant leak successful mid-December.

In a blog station published connected Friday, NASA said that it “reached retired to SpaceX astir its capableness to instrumentality further unit members aboard Dragon if needed successful an emergency.” At the moment, NASA is investigating whether oregon not the Soyuz spacecraft would inactive beryllium susceptible of carrying astronauts connected the travel backmost from the International Space Station, the abstraction bureau added.

The Soyuz spacecraft transported NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin to the ISS successful September 2022. On December 14, the spacecraft began leaking coolant into debased Earth orbit portion attached to the ISS. The coolant leak lasted for 3 hours and was captured connected a livestream by NASA TV. The astronauts connected committee the abstraction presumption were not harmed, but the destiny of the 3 astronauts that were meant to usage the Soyuz spacecraft to instrumentality to Earth remains up successful the air.

“NASA and Roscosmos are continuing to behaviour a assortment of engineering reviews and are consulting with different planetary partners astir methods for safely bringing the Soyuz unit location for some mean and contingency scenarios,” NASA wrote successful the blog post. The 2 abstraction agencies are expected to marque a last determination regarding the viability of the spacecraft this month.

Roscosmos was hoping to marque a determination by December 27, but the space bureau announced that it needed much time to measure the formation capabilities of the Soyuz spacecraft. The nonstop crushed down the leak has not been announced, though it whitethorn person been caused by a micrometeorite oregon a tiny portion of abstraction junk that near an 0.8-millimeter-wide spread successful the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft.

Rubio was the archetypal NASA astronaut to alert aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket since April 2021, the effect of a caller seat-swap agreement betwixt the 2 abstraction agencies. The statement stipulated that a U.S. astronaut would thrust aboard a Soyuz capsule successful speech for a Russian cosmonaut boarding a SpaceX Crew Dragon for the precise archetypal time. Should the Soyuz spacecraft beryllium deemed unusable for a unit return, NASA whitethorn telephone connected SpaceX to nonstop a Crew Dragon to prime up the 3 astronauts from the ISS and bring them backmost to Earth. The astronauts are scheduled to instrumentality successful the outpouring aft having spent six months connected committee the ISS.

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