Roscosmos tell it needs more time to value the flight worthiness of its damaged Soyuz MS-22 ballistic capsule , leaving the rubber of three ISS work party members in doubtfulness .
According to a Roscosmos argument , investigators “ will make organisational decisions about future actions of land specialists and the crew of the ISS Russian segment , as well as on possible change in the place ’s flying program in January 2023 ” asreportedby state - move TASS news agency . The Russian space agency had originally hope to harbinger a conclusion on December 27 . Two work groups are presently pass judgment the spacecraft and the position , with no specific date render for the January decision .
The incident happen on December 15 , when sensor read a pressure drop in the Soyuz MS-22 ’s outside cooling loop-the-loop located on the spacecraft ’s service module . camera showedcoolant vomit up out from the capsule ’s radiator , prompting the cancellation of a project spacewalk . Roscosmos and NASA both submit that the escape pose no peril to the crew or the International Space Station . Thesubsequent discovery of a 0.8 - millimetre - wide holeled to supposition that the spacecraft ’s radiator was struck by an errant particle .
A view of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft docked to the Russian Rassvet module.Photo: NASA
The Soyuz ’s thrusters puzzle out very well during subsequent trial , but dubiousness persist about temperature regulation within the gang compartment and whether or not the capsule can safely persuade three gang members , NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin , back home . The persist four crew members are already accounted for , having seats aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon parked outside .
That the decision on the craft ’s flight worthiness has been crowd to January is not needfully knotty . Roscosmos is already in the thick of preparing the replenishment Soyuz MS-23 for launch , with Sergei Krikalev , pass of Roscosmos ’s human spacefaring programme , telling reporters on December 23 that the mission could be expedited by several weeks and launch in mid - February . Should the MS-22 be deemed unfit for human use , an uncrewed MS-23 would launch to the ISS and bob in sovereign mood . As for the MS-22 , it would be air back to Earth without rider and retrieve for inspections . That said , the abridgement ’s damage service module will not repay to Earth , as it gets discarded prior to re - entree .
We may never cognize the on-key crusade of the Soyuz leakage , but Roscosmos seems certain that the golf hole was create by a foreign target of some sort , either a tiny meteor or quad rubble . The distance bureau , using cameras check to a automatic branch , performed further review on December 18 , leading it to conclude that “ the temperature mastery organization radiator was rupture because of external mechanically skillful damage , ” concord to Roscosmos and as TASSreportedon December 27 . The Russian blank agency is effectively ruling out the theory that a pre - manufactured radiator vent-hole hole was the source of the outflow , as NASAsuggestedin a statement .
Coolant leaking uncontrollably into space on December 15.Screenshot: NASA TV
Should a major emergency come between now and the arrival of the replacement Soyuz , Rubio , Prokopyev , and Petelin would have no option but to apply the damaged MS-22 as a lifeboat and Leslie Townes Hope for the unspoiled . And in fact , Roscosmos has bring home the bacon the trio with amodified set of instructionsto that effect .
A full - scale elimination of the ISS has never befall , but such a matter can never be harness out , whether on chronicle of threatening space junk or some eccentric of catastrophic malfunction . Alarmingly , a piece of space junk pilot near the space station last hebdomad , prompting a debris dodging maneuver — and probably some very elevated sum rates .
relate : Astronauts Forced to Take Shelter as Debris Cloud imperil Space Station
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