On Thursday-Friday night, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft took off from Kazakhstan International Space Stationon a mission to bring back two Russian and one American cosmonauts who are stranded after a leak in their spacecraft.
The MS-23 relief vehicle took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome without anyone in it, according to scenes shown by the Russian space agencies “Roskosmos” and the US “NASA”. And “Roskosmos” confirmed in a statement that the spacecraft’s take-off and placement in orbit “went as expected,” explaining that its docking with the International Space Station is expected on February 26 at 01:01 GMT.
The vehicle was initially scheduled to take off in mid-March to carry three more astronauts to the International Space Station. But the spacecraft was launched empty to bring back Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petlin, and American Frank Rubio.
In the absence of any crew to replace them, their mission was extended until September, while they were initially scheduled to return at the end of March. At the end of the mission, they will have spent about a year in space, rather than a period that usually lasts only six months.
At the end of September 2022, the two Russian astronauts and the American astronaut took off aboard the “Soyuz MS-22” spacecraft. The vehicles in which astronauts arrive usually remain docked at the International Space Station for the duration of their mission, in order to be used as a relief vehicle in the event that they are forced to withdraw as a result of any emergency accident that they may encounter. The crew returns to Earth in the same vehicle.
But the Soyuz MS-22 vehicle was exposed in December to a massive leak of coolant, which Moscow indicated was caused by a collision with a small meteorite.
Roskosmos decided to send the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft to bring back the crew in September. As for “Soyuz MS-22”, it is scheduled to be returned empty to Earth at the end of next month.
A similar leak in mid-February hit another Russian spacecraft, the Progress MS-21 cargo spacecraft, which has been docked at the International Space Station since October. This vehicle was not intended to carry crews and was returned to Earth last week.
Roskosmos said on Tuesday that an “external collision” caused the leak.
France 24/AFP