![]() ![]() 18, but results have not yet been released.) (Canadarm2 was also used overnight on Sunday, Dec. Soyuz tests have shown "no other faults" besides the leak, and a new European robotic arm has examined the hull of the spaceship, where a "possible place of damage" was found near the instrument assembly. Before the spacecraft was shut down, temperatures got no higher than 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius). Russian specialists have been assessing the state of the Soyuz for days, and Roscosmos says the temperatures inside are not above 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) despite the lack of coolant. Russian cargo ships do dock autonomously to the ISS, although the country experienced two seriously damaging collisions with earlier versions aboard the space station Mir in the 1990s. I believe that at least one person has to be on board," said Tommaso Sgobba, who is the executive director of the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS) and a former head of spaceflight safety at the European Space Agency (ESA). "I don't think Soyuz can dock completely autonomously. The Soyuz MS-23 may be flown autonomously to the space station in as little as 45 days to replace the damaged spacecraft, Russia said, although one space safety expert told they would likely want a cosmonaut at the helm. "Soyuz MS-23 is located at Baikonur and has already passed part of the tests before the scheduled launch in March," Roscosmos officials added, referring to the usual Kazakhstan launch site controlled by Russia, which services the ISS for both cargo and crewed launches. Russia has said it plans to quit the project after 2024 and launch its own station.If the crew cannot fly home aboard the beleaguered craft in March 2023 as planned, the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft "can be quickly prepared for launch to replace the Soyuz MS-22," Roscosmos officials wrote. have been poisoned by Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, but the two countries continue to work closely together on the space station, an orbital laboratory about 250 miles (400 km) above the Earth that has been occupied continuously for two decades. ![]() All arrived in October on the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. The latter had been due to take up three new crew in March, but instead will be launched empty next month to dock with the space station.įour other crew members are currently on the orbital station - two more from NASA, a third Russian, and a Japanese astronaut. ![]() ![]() The mission was due to end in March, but the plan now is to extend it by several months and bring the three men home on the MS-23. "The descent of two cosmonauts instead of three will be safer, as it will help reduce the temperature and humidity in the Soyuz MS-22." If an emergency evacuation is necessary, Rubio will return to Earth on the Crew Dragon, and the Roscosmos cosmonauts will return on the Soyuz MS-22, it said. Given there could be an earlier emergency, Rubio's seat was being moved from the MS-22 to a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, also docked to the space station, Roscosmos said Saturday. But it will not dock with the space station until February 22. Roscosmos and NASA said this week that a new spacecraft, Soyuz MS-23, would be launched next month to bring back cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and U.S. The Soyuz MS-22 capsule, which serves as a lifeboat for the crew, sprang a coolant leak last month after it was struck by a micrometeoroid - a small particle of space rock - which made a tiny puncture and caused the temperature inside to rise. member of the trio would return to Earth in a separate SpaceX vessel if they needed to evacuate in the next few weeks. Russia's space agency Roscosmos announced new contingency plans Saturday for the three-member crew of a damaged capsule docked to the International Space Station, saying the U.S. ![]()
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