The Russian and American space agencies have announced a bold and risky plan to bring astronauts back to Earth following a coolant leak incident on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft.
On January 11, Roscosmos and NASA, the Russian and American space agencies, officially revealed their rescue plan for three astronauts: Sergey Prokopyev, Dimitry Petelin from Roscosmos, and Frank Rubio from NASA. These crew members were aboard Soyuz MS-22, which encountered a coolant leak in mid-December 2022.
According to Science Alert, Russia has announced a daring plan initially envisioned by Roscosmos: to send an empty Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) as a replacement for the return trip.
The damaged Soyuz MS-22 will also be scheduled to return to Earth in a vacant state.
Soyuz MS-22 launched into space in September 2022.
This is an unprecedented action, as previously, Soyuz spacecraft always had a crew onboard. This raised concerns among scientists about the increased difficulty of the mission, as Russia would need two Soyuz spacecraft to bring back the three crew members if they were to be manned.
Earlier, the U.S. also proposed an alternative plan to send a SpaceX spacecraft to the ISS to retrieve the aforementioned astronauts.
Nevertheless, the mission of these three astronauts will extend for a longer duration instead of returning to Earth in March as originally planned.
The director of the ISS program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center stated: “We are not calling this a Soyuz rescue. I refer to it as a Soyuz replacement. Right now, the crew is still safe aboard the Space Station.”
Previously, a video released by NASA on December 14, 2022, showed the Soyuz MS-22 experiencing a significant coolant leak while docked at the ISS. This incident also forced the astronauts on board to cancel an upcoming spacewalk.
During a press conference on January 11, both Russian and American space agencies concluded that the cause of the incident was a small meteorite impact.
Alongside the announcement of extending the Soyuz MS-22 astronauts’ mission for several months and the launch of a replacement Soyuz, Roscosmos also decided to postpone the next crewed Soyuz spacecraft launch.
This mission will carry Roscosmos astronauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolay Chub, along with NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, which was initially scheduled for spring 2023 but has now been delayed until autumn, according to TASS on January 12.
