After Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft suffered a coolant leak in mid-December, NASA may turn to its commercial partner SpaceX to fly three astronauts back to Earth.
In a blog post published on Friday, NASA He said I have “communicated with SpaceX about the ability to send additional crew members to Dragon if needed in an emergency.” And the US space agency added that NASA is currently investigating whether the Soyuz spacecraft is capable of carrying astronauts on a return trip from the International Space Station.
The Soyuz spacecraft will deliver NASA astronauts Frank Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petlin to the International Space Station in September 2022. On December 14, the spacecraft launched. Coolant leak in low Earth orbit while it was attached to the International Space Station. The refrigerant leak lasted for three hours and was captured on live NASA television. The astronauts aboard the space station were unharmed, but the fate of the three astronauts who returned to Earth using the Soyuz spacecraft is still up in the air.
“NASA and Roscosmos continue to conduct numerous engineering reviews and are consulting with other international partners on ways to safely bring the Soyuz crew home under normal and emergency conditions,” NASA wrote in a blog post. The two space agencies are expected to make a final decision on the viability of the spacecraft this month.
Roscosmos hopes to make a decision by December 27, however The space agency announced that more time was needed To assess the flight capabilities of the Soyuz spacecraft. The exact cause of the leak has not been announced, although it could be It is caused by a small meteorite or small piece of space debris It left a hole 0.8 mm wide in the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft.
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Rubio was the first NASA astronaut to fly aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket since April 2021latest score Seat transfer agreement between the two space agencies. The arrangement called for an American astronaut to ride in a Soyuz capsule versus a Russian astronaut to board the SpaceX Crew Dragon for the first time. If the Soyuz spacecraft is deemed unusable for a crew return, NASA could call on SpaceX to send a Dragon crew to pick up three astronauts from the International Space Station and return them to Earth. The astronauts are due to return in the spring after spending six months on the International Space Station.
in addition to: A Russian cosmonaut forced to abandon a spacewalk due to a power failure in his spacesuit