The S oyuz MS-22 spacecraft is not safe for the crew that must return from the International Space Station so Roscosmos.
NASA will change their future missions for the rescue.
The situation on the International Space Station (ISS) due to damage to the Soyuz MS-22 transport ship has escalated and both NASA and Roscosmos are planning to rescue the stranded astronauts with two emergency missions.
This is stated by The Launch Pad news , who details that the Soyuz MS – 23 ship will have to advance its scheduled trip to space from March to February and leave for the ISS with a single passenger, in order to bring back their companions .
This is how the situation of the Soyuz MS-22 is going
On December 15, a live broadcast from NASA showed how the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft suffered a refrigerant leak in space due to small holes on its surface.
After several days of inspection with the station’s robotic arms, the preliminary information is that some external factor (may be micrometeorites) left a 0.8 mm (0.031 inch) diameter hole in the spacecraft’s external cooler radiator. .
This problem caused cosmonauts Sergey Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio, their passengers, to be left without a vehicle back to Earth.
Given this, and after consultations between both space agencies, an agreement is being reached for the damaged spacecraft to disengage from the ISS without a crew and try to return to the planet: having the thermoregulation system damaged, there is a high probability of failure
A sister to the rescue
For stranded passengers, the Soyuz MS-23 will have to move its travel date from March to mid-February.
Of course, the three programmed scientists will no longer travel, but only the cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko would man the ship towards the station. This would be the first solo mission since 2004 when Brian Binney flew a SpaceShipOne.
Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopiev and Dmitry Petelin will have to spend six more months in space to return together with Kononenko in the Russian spacecraft.
On the other hand, in the case of the American Frank Rubio, the Crew-6 mission that NASA and SpaceX will send in mid-February will arrive with one less crew member, the Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. This space will be supplied by Rubio, who will also have to spend six more months in orbit to return safely to the planet.
Astronauts and cosmonauts removed from missions will be reassigned to future ones.