A Russia released a statement that soon, next month, it will send an empty spacecraft to the Space Station International - ISS in order to rescue the cosmonauts who were trapped and make it possible for them to return to House. Below we will give you more information on the subject.
The return of the three astronauts
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Russia will send an empty spacecraft to rescue three astronauts. This action will be necessary because the transport vehicle to return was damaged after an impact with a small meteoroid.
The announcement of the rescue was made by Roscosmos, after an analysis of the flight conditions of the Soyuz capsule MS-22, which was docked to the ISS and ended up causing a leak in the spacecraft's radiator, in December 2022.
According to some employees of Roscosmos and the NASA, an unmanned Soyuz spacecraft will be sent to the ISS on February 20 to bring cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio back to Earth.
The rescue
Joel Montalbano, ISS program manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said following about the rescue: “We are not calling it a Soyuz rescue, I am calling it a Soyuz replacement. Soyuz. At this time, the crew is safe aboard the space station.”
SpaceX Crew Dragon
Krikalev, a Russian astronaut, said the decision to use the MS-23 to fly the current crew home was due to concerns about possible high temperatures in MS-22, which is damaged, during re-entry of the atmosphere of the Earth. But he also reported that, in an emergency, the spacecraft can be used.
This is Montalbano's ongoing discussion with SpaceX about using the Crew Dragon capsule to fly other astronauts aboard the ISS home.
Montalbano added: “We can safely secure crew members in the area where cargo normally returns on the Dragon. All this is just for an emergency, only if we have to evacuate the ISS”, emphasized the NASA official about the situation. "That's not the nominal plan or anything like that," he added.
Krikalev also said that an unmanned MS-22 would return to Earth, likely in March, after the replacement vehicle arrives. He said this is to bring back equipment that is not "temperature sensitive".