MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos said Monday that a coolant leak from a Russian space capsule attached to the International Space Station doesn’t require evacuation of its crew, however the agency kept open the potential for launching a substitute capsule, if needed.
Roscosmos said a panel of experts would determine later this month whether the Soyuz MS-22 capsule might be safely utilized by the crew for its planned return to Earth or if it ought to be discarded and replaced.
It said the following scheduled launch of a Soyuz was in March but might be expedited, if needed.
The leak from the Soyuz MS-22 was spotted last week as a pair of Russian cosmonauts were about to enterprise outside the station on a planned spacewalk. Russian Mission Control aborted the spacewalk when ground specialists saw a stream of fluid and particles emanating from the Soyuz on a live video feed from space.
Roscosmos and NASA each have said the incident hasn’t posed any danger to the station’s crew.
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Roscosmos said the leak may need been attributable to a micrometeorite or a bit of space junk striking certainly one of the capsule’s external radiators.
The corporation said Monday that the leak caused the temperature within the crew section of the capsule to rise to 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). The temperature within the equipment section initially soared to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) but dropped to 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) after ground experts switched among the capsule’s systems, Roscosmos said.
Roscosmos said the crew used ventilators within the Russian segment to blow cold air into the capsule to cut back temperature within the cockpit to comfortable levels.
“The rise in temperature on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft is admissible and is not critical for the functioning of the equipment or health of the crew in case they have to be within the spacecraft,” Roscosmos said, adding that tests of the ship’s control system determined it wasn’t affected by the incident.
The space corporation said an inspection of the capsule’s surface with a camera on a Canadian-built robotic arm helped spot the situation of the coolant leak.
Prokopyev, Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio used the Soyuz MS-22 to reach on the International Space Station in September, and it has served as a lifeboat for the crew. The capsule was scheduled to hold among the space station’s crew back to Earth in March as part of standard rotations.
Together with Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio, 4 other crew members are currently on the space outpost: NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada; the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Koichi Wakata; and Anna Kikina of Roscosmos.
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