Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev conducts a spacewalk with cosmonaut Dmitry Petelin outdoors the International Space Station in November 2022.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Russia launched a rescue ship on February 24 for two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut whose authentic journey house sprang a harmful leak whereas parked on the International Space Station.
The new, empty Soyuz capsule ought to arrive on the orbiting lab on Sunday.
The capsule leak in December was blamed on a micrometeorite that punctured an exterior radiator, draining it of coolant. The identical factor appeared to occur once more earlier this month, this time on a docked Russian cargo ship. Camera views confirmed a small gap in every spacecraft.
Original delays
The Russian Space Agency delayed the launch of the alternative Soyuz, searching for any manufacturing defects. No points had been discovered, and the company proceeded with Friday’s predawn launch from Kazakhstan of the capsule with bundles of provides strapped into the three seats.
Until the brand new Soyuz pulls up, emergency plans name for Rubio to change to a SpaceX crew capsule that’s docked on the space station. Mr. Prokopyev and Mr. Petelin stay assigned to their broken Soyuz within the unlikely want for a quick getaway. Having one much less individual on board would preserve the temperature down to a hopefully manageable stage, Russian engineers concluded.
Given the pressing want for this capsule, two high NASA officers travelled from the U.S. to observe the launch in individual. To everybody’s reduction, the capsule safely reached orbit 9 minutes after liftoff — “a perfect ride to orbit,” NASA Mission Control’s Rob Navias reported from Houston.
Officials had decided it was too dangerous to convey NASA’s Frank Rubio and Russia’s Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin again of their broken Soyuz subsequent month as initially deliberate. With no coolant, the cabin temperature would spike throughout the journey again to Earth, doubtlessly damaging computer systems and different tools, and exposing the suited-up crew to extreme warmth.
The broken Soyuz will return to Earth with nobody aboard by the top of March, so engineers can look at it.
Astronauts to keep in space for one yr
The three males launched on this Soyuz final September on what ought to have been a six-month mission. They’ll now keep in space for a full yr, till a brand new capsule is prepared for his or her crew replacements for liftoff in September. It was their Soyuz that simply launched with nobody on board.
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The broken provide ship was crammed with trash and reduce free over the weekend, burning up within the ambiance as initially deliberate.
“The Russians are continuing to take a really close look” at each spacecraft leaks, NASA’s deputy space station program supervisor Dana Weigel instructed reporters earlier this week. “They’re looking at everything … to try to understand that.”
NASA has a fresh crew of four launching atop a SpaceX rocket early Monday morning from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. SpaceX’s William Gerstenmaier said the four astronauts returning to Earth in a few weeks already have inspected the Dragon capsule that will carry them home and “it all checked out fine”.
