Russia will launch a first-of-its-kind mission to bring a substitute spacecraft to astronauts who’ve been stranded in orbit and not using a lifeboat for nearly a month, space officials said Wednesday.
The country plans to send an empty Soyuz capsule to the International Space Station in February to exchange the one which was slammed by a tiny meteoroid and started leaking coolant in December, Russia’s Roscosmos agency and NASA said.
“That is the subsequent Soyuz that was scheduled to fly in March. It’ll just fly slightly early,” NASA space station manager Joel Montalbano said at a press conference Wednesday.
The substitute capsule, the Soyuz MS-23, will bring Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio back to Earth after it’s sent up on Feb. 20, he said, in keeping with space.com.
The lads have been living with no return ship for the reason that previous spacecraft, the Soyuz MS-22, was struck by an area rock and started spewing white liquid on Dec. 14.
Without the coolant, analysts determined the capsule could overheat to temperatures greater than 100 degrees — endangering the crew and potentially causing equipment to glitch.
The scenario is unprecedented and until the substitute spacecraft arrives, there’s a better probability of an emergency, comparable to a bigger leak that may force the boys to evacuate.
But officials on Wednesday played down the threat.
Commercial
“I’ll let you know, there isn’t any immediate need for the crew to return home today, that each one the systems are operating,” Montalbano said. “The Soyuz just isn’t good for nominal re-entry … but in case of emergency, with extra risk, we’re going to use this Soyuz.”
The astronauts had been scheduled to return to Earth in March but will now remain on the space station for several more months, space officials said.
The damaged capsule can be also sent back to Kazakhstan with cargo in March.
On Dec. 15, a spacewalk by the 2 Russian cosmonauts was called off after flight controllers noticed a stream of white liquid leaking from the spacecraft.
Officials later said the outlet was brought on by a one-millimeter-wide meteorite soaring through the cosmos at roughly 15,000 mph.
Not one of the astronauts were ever in any danger, in keeping with NASA.
With Post Wires
Russia will launch a first-of-its-kind mission to bring a substitute spacecraft to astronauts who’ve been stranded in orbit and not using a lifeboat for nearly a month, space officials said Wednesday.
The country plans to send an empty Soyuz capsule to the International Space Station in February to exchange the one which was slammed by a tiny meteoroid and started leaking coolant in December, Russia’s Roscosmos agency and NASA said.
“That is the subsequent Soyuz that was scheduled to fly in March. It’ll just fly slightly early,” NASA space station manager Joel Montalbano said at a press conference Wednesday.
The substitute capsule, the Soyuz MS-23, will bring Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio back to Earth after it’s sent up on Feb. 20, he said, in keeping with space.com.
The lads have been living with no return ship for the reason that previous spacecraft, the Soyuz MS-22, was struck by an area rock and started spewing white liquid on Dec. 14.
Without the coolant, analysts determined the capsule could overheat to temperatures greater than 100 degrees — endangering the crew and potentially causing equipment to glitch.
The scenario is unprecedented and until the substitute spacecraft arrives, there’s a better probability of an emergency, comparable to a bigger leak that may force the boys to evacuate.
But officials on Wednesday played down the threat.
Commercial
“I’ll let you know, there isn’t any immediate need for the crew to return home today, that each one the systems are operating,” Montalbano said. “The Soyuz just isn’t good for nominal re-entry … but in case of emergency, with extra risk, we’re going to use this Soyuz.”
The astronauts had been scheduled to return to Earth in March but will now remain on the space station for several more months, space officials said.
The damaged capsule can be also sent back to Kazakhstan with cargo in March.
On Dec. 15, a spacewalk by the 2 Russian cosmonauts was called off after flight controllers noticed a stream of white liquid leaking from the spacecraft.
Officials later said the outlet was brought on by a one-millimeter-wide meteorite soaring through the cosmos at roughly 15,000 mph.
Not one of the astronauts were ever in any danger, in keeping with NASA.
With Post Wires
