Russia sent a rescue spacecraft on Friday, Feb. 24, to the International Space Station (ISS) for two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut after their initial ride back to Earth had a dangerous leak, as reported first by AP.
The new Soyuz will replace the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft after a radiator coolant leak on Dec. 14, 2022. It is expected to reach the orbiting lab by Sunday.
(Photo : Joel Kowsky/NASA via Getty Images)
CAPE CANAVERAL, FL - APRIL 8: In this handout photo provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft is launched on Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) to the International Space Station
Capsule Leak
Earlier this month, it appeared that the capsule had leaked once more, this time on a parked Russian cargo ship. Each spacecraft had a small hole visible based on camera views.
The new Soyuz launch was postponed while the Russian Space Agency checked for potential production flaws. The agency continued with the Friday morning launch of the capsule from Kazakhstan with packages of supplies strapped onto the three seats after no problems were discovered.
Two senior NASA officials flew from the US to witness the launch in person due to the urgent necessity for this capsule. Nine minutes after takeoff, the capsule was successfully launched into orbit.
It was decided by authorities that it would be too unsafe to return NASA's Frank Rubio, Sergey Prokopyev, and Dmitri Petelin on their damaged Soyuz next month as originally intended.
Without coolant, the temperature in the cabin would rise throughout the return trip to Earth, potentially harming computers and other equipment and exposing the crew to extreme heat.
Emergency preparations call for Rubio to transition to a SpaceX crew capsule that is docked at the space station until the new Soyuz arrives. In the unusual event that a quick escape is required, Prokopyev and Petelin are still assigned to their damaged Soyuz.
Russian engineers decided that one fewer passenger would help to keep the temperature at a potentially acceptable level.
Damaged Soyuz Ship
By the end of March, the damaged Soyuz will land on Earth without anyone on board so that engineers may inspect it.
The three astronauts set off on this Soyuz in September 2022 on a mission that was supposed to last six months.
Now that a new capsule is prepared for their crew replacements' launch in September, they will remain in space for a full year.
The crippled supply ship was loaded with garbage and let adrift over the weekend once it burned up in the sky as intended.
A brand-new NASA crew of four is taking off early on Monday from Florida's Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX rocket.
The four astronauts who will return to Earth in a few weeks, according to William Gerstenmaier of SpaceX, have already checked out the Dragon capsule that will take them home.
According to NASA's recent blog post, the unmanned Soyuz spacecraft is already secure in orbit following the launch at 7:24 p.m. EST on Thursday, Feb. 23, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
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