Roscosmos will send an emergency Soyuz spacecraft to the ISS to replace the damaged ship

sarahjay1 (69)memberin Popular STEM • 2 years ago

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, concluded that the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft was unsuitable for the return of astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS).

The ship had problems with a coolant leak.

Therefore, an empty Soyuz (MS-23) spacecraft will be sent to the ISS ahead of schedule in February.

A coolant leak from the thermal control system of the Soyuz MS-22 (Tsiolkovsky) spacecraft docked to the ISS occurred on December 15 last year.

For unknown reasons (maybe due to a micrometeorite hit or a fragment of space debris), a hole formed in the tube with the coolant, and all the liquid evaporated into outer space.

As a result, the Russian ship's thermoregulation system failed.

TSIOLKOVSKY MISSION
The Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft was launched on September 21, 2022 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome

On board the ship, two cosmonauts (Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin) and a NASA astronaut (Francisco Rubio) arrived to the ISS.

The ship served as a lifeboat for them, providing the possibility of an emergency return to Earth in the event of an accident on the ISS or illness of one of the crew.

The rest of the crew, including cosmonaut Anna Kikina, arrived at the station on the SpaceX ship Dragon.

The failure of the Soyuz meant that the three people on board the ISS were left without the possibility of an emergency evacuation.

Now, Roscosmos has decided that Soyuz MS-22 will descend to Earth without a crew, and on February 20, 2023, Soyuz MS-23 will be launched in unmanned mode to replace it.

The stay of Sergei Prokopiev, Dmitry Petelin and Francisco Rubio on the ISS will be extended, they will return to Earth on Soyuz MS-23.

Previous plans suggested that the next Soyuz would fly to the ISS on March 16 with NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub.

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