Cosmonauts were stranded on the International Space Station ( ISS ) due to a spacecraft leaking coolant. Now Russia will send a rescue mission.
Russia reported that it plans to send a rescue ship on February 24 to bring three crew members from the International Space Station ( ISS ) to Earth , after postponing the launch due to a leak in another moored ship.
“The launch is scheduled for February 24,” said a source from the Russian space agency, Roscosmos , although he specified that the final decision was up to the State Commission, which will meet “soon.”
a rescue ship
Roscosmos said earlier Saturday in a statement that “the council of leading (aerospace) designers recommended to the State Commission to schedule the launch of the Soyuz MS-23 space vehicle (…) from Baikonur on February 24 at 03:34 a.m. Moscow time” (0024 GMT).
On Monday, the Russian space agency announced it would delay the launch of the Soyuz MS-23 until early March , after a new leak was discovered aboard another spacecraft anchored to the ISS .
This new incident takes place two months after a leak was detected in another Russian spacecraft attached to the ISS , which was supposed to bring two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut, Frank Rubio, to Earth.
Faced with the impossibility of using the damaged capsule, Roscosmos had announced in mid-January that it wanted to use another spacecraft, the Soyuz MS-23 , to go to the ISS to recover the crew.
The ISS is one of the few sectors in which Russia and the United States still cooperate , after the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine on February 24 and the Western sanctions that followed. (AFP)