Soyuz MS-23: Russia launches replacement spacecraft for cosmonauts after coolant leaks

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Russia launched the Soyuz spacecraft that will replace a capsule that developed a coolant leak in December, leaving two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut without a flight home.

The capsule, called Soyuz MS-23, lifted off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome launch site in Kazakhstan Thursday at 7:24 p.m. ET, which is 5:24 a.m. Friday. local time.

The uncrewed spacecraft will spend about two days in orbit, maneuvering toward the International Space Station and expected to dock with the Poisk module — located in the Russian-operated portion of the space station — just after 8 p.m. ET on Saturday.

Soyuz MS-23 will be the return vehicle for cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petlin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, all of whom traveled to the space station aboard the Soyuz MS-22 capsule in September.

Instead of flying with crew members on board, Soyuz MS-23 launched Thursday with only a “Zero-G index,” which could be any object left in the cabin and designed to float freely when the capsule enters microgravity. For this task, the pointer is a teddy bear tied to a string inside the booth.

About two months into the three men’s flight, the MS-22 experienced a coolant leak, which left the cabin at temperatures deemed unsafe for crew members to use on the return flight. Roscosmos and NASA worked quickly to come up with plans to send a rocket Alternative car. Roscosmos officials said they determined that the leak was caused by a small hole created by the impact of a micrometeorite.

However, plans to launch the rescue craft were called into question when a Russian cargo ship, named Progress, experienced a similar coolant leak after docking with the space station. On February 11, three days later, Roscosmos said in a post on the social networking site Telegram that it would delay the launch of the Soyuz MS-23 until at least March while the agency investigates the cause of the Progress vehicle’s coolant leak.

Tuesday, However, Roscosmos said in an updated post on Telegram that it has identified the cause of the Progress spacecraft leak as “external influences”.

“The Russians continue to take a closer look at both the Soyuz leaks and cryogenic advances,” Dana Weigel, deputy space station administrator at NASA, said during a press briefing Wednesday.

And she added, “They have formed a government committee to assess the anomalies,” noting that the team is analyzing possible causes from the time the capsules were launched during their journey in orbit.

Originally, Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chubb and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara were expected to launch to the space station on March 16 aboard MS-23.

Instead, Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio’s time on the space station will be extended so that they can return to Earth aboard Soyuz MS-23 later this year. This comeback may happen in September, according to a report by Russia’s state-run media TASS.

If that schedule continues, the three crew members will have extended their expected six-month stay in space to about one year.

When asked about the extended stay, Joel Montalbano, NASA’s space station program manager, said the crew is still healthy and there is no reason to speed up their trip home.

Montalbano said during a press conference on January 11 that the crew is “ready to help wherever we ask.” “They’re excited to be in space, excited to work and excited to do the research that we’re doing on orbit. So they’re ready to make any decision we make for them.”

he added, “I may have to fly more Ice cream to reward them.”

The launch of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft comes just days before NASA and SpaceX launch their Crew-6 mission. Crew 6, expected to lift off early Monday morning, will carry NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren “Woody” Hoburg as well as Sultan Al Neyadi, an Emirati astronaut, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.

After a brief period These Four Arrive at the Space Station, NASA Crew-5 Astronauts Will Return Home From Their Five-Month Stay There aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. NASA officials said this week that coolant leaks experienced on the Soyuz and Progress spacecraft will have no impact on SpaceX missions and that no similar problems have been detected on Crew Dragon vehicles.