Russia has set a new date for when it will go to the International Space Station to recover the three astronauts whose Soyuz return spacecraft was compromised. The country’s space agency Roscosmos Saturday is targeting the February 24 launch of MS-23, the uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft that is scheduled to bring back cosmonauts Dmitri Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev, as well as NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, of the International Space Station.
Roscosmos delayed the mission last Monday after the Progress 82, a supply ship that had been docked to the ISS since last October, began. Petelin, Prokopyev and Rubio flew to the space station in September and were supposed to return on the same Soyuz spacecraft that took them there. In December, however, the spacecraft had a leak, due to an apparent meteorite impact. A month later, Roscosmos would send a second Soyuz spacecraft to retrieve the three astronauts. The timing of the leaks leads to that a manufacturing problem was to blame for the Soyuz leak, not an errant space rock as Roscosmos had claimed. Earlier this week, the agency shared images (seen above) showing the location of the coolant leak and the reported micrometeorite impact.
NASA’s Jeff Arend references the refrigerant leak on Progress MS-21, which occurred on Saturday. He said that he did not draw conclusions about its cause. After the unmanned vehicle undocks tonight, it will rotate so astronauts can photograph the damaged area before Progress enters Earth’s atmosphere.
—Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) February 17, 2023
On Saturday, Roscosmos said it had carefully inspected the rescue ship to ensure it was undamaged and ready to fly. A day earlier, Progress 82 separated from the ISS. By video feed during the undocking procedure did not show any obvious signs of damage to the resupply ship. , Progress 82 will initiate an de-orbit burn at 10:15 pm ET tonight. As long as Roscosmos doesn’t delay the launch of MS-23, the spacecraft will arrive at the ISS two days before Space X. is scheduled to release on February 26. That flight will bring two NASA astronauts, an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates and a Russian cosmonaut to the space station.
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