The leak of coolant from the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft began on December 14.
Russia said Thursday that it is examining its seaworthy spacecraft docked at the International Space Station (ISS) after its spectacular leak last week and is considering sending a rescue craft for the crew members.
The leak of coolant from the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft began on December 14. Footage broadcast by NASA showed the leak coming from the back of the space vehicle.
Damages are still being assessed, Sergei Krikalyov, director of manned flights at the Russian space agency Roscosmos, said during a press conference organized by the US space agency on Thursday.
If the thermal analysis — which will allow an estimate of the temperature inside the cabin — shows that the MS-22 spacecraft can no longer accommodate a crew, the launch of another Sayuz capsule, scheduled for mid-March from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russian launch base in Kazakhstan, can be expedited and the capsule can reach the ISS without a crew, he explained.
“They’re looking at sending the next Soyuz vehicle at the end of February,” added Joel Montalbano, an ISS official at NASA who was interviewed.
If an expedited mission is indeed necessary, the damaged spacecraft will return to Earth without a crew.
The Sayuz MS-22 spacecraft carried two Russian cosmonauts, Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin, and American astronaut Frank Rubio to the station in September.
There are currently seven people on the ISS, but if MS-22 is deemed unseaworthy, the space station will have just one rescue craft, capable of carrying only four people, in case it needs to be evacuated.
Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina, US astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Kasada, and Japan’s Koichi Wakata arrived at the ISS aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft in October.
More work is needed to determine whether the problem was caused by small meteorites of natural origin, human-made debris or technical failure, according to Mr. Montalbano.
The ILO remains one of the few areas where the partnership between Moscow and Washington continues unaffected by Russia’s February 24 military invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions.
The International Space Station was put into operation in 1998, a period of US-Russian cooperation, after the space race in which the two countries had engaged during the Cold War.
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