On Dec. 14, because the cosmonauts had been making ready to depart the station’s airlock to carry out a spacewalk, floor controllers observed a leak of coolant spraying uncontrollably into house. Roscosmos, the Russian house company, instantly canceled the spacewalk and decided that the leak was coming from a tiny gap in an exterior cooling line, about one millimeter broad. The coolant is used to maintain the capsule at a snug temperature.
Since then, Roscosmos, in cooperation with NASA, had been attempting to decide whether or not the spacecraft was match to fly the crew dwelling or if the company wanted to send up a rescue craft. The groups decided that with out the coolant, temperatures contained in the spacecraft might exceed 100 levels Fahrenheit. The excessive temperature mixed with humidity might have an effect on the spacecraft’s computing programs and in addition make the ambiance uncomfortable for the crew.
After the brand new spacecraft arrives at the station, Roscosmos plans to fly, with out crew members, the damaged Soyuz again to Earth, the place it will likely be retrieved and inspected.
NASA and Roscosmos have mentioned that the crew members on the station aren’t in peril and that they continued to conduct analysis and science experiments, together with rising tomatoes, whereas crews on the bottom developed an answer for the issue. Seven individuals are aboard the station: the three who flew on the Soyuz craft in September and 4 who flew to the station in October on SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, which is also docked at the station.
In a name with reporters Wednesday, NASA’s house station program supervisor, Joel Montalbano, sought to downplay the severity of the difficulty, saying there’s “no immediate need for the crew to come home today.”
Speaking from Moscow, the place he was concerned in conferences with Roscosmos officers, Montalbano mentioned NASA was not “calling it a rescue Soyuz. … I’m calling it a replacement Soyuz.”
Sergei Krikalev, govt director of Roscosmos’s human spaceflight packages, mentioned the companies put together for this form of scenario, understanding they’re extraordinarily uncommon. “This is a scenario we envision, and now we are basically following the procedure,” he mentioned.
Krikalev mentioned it was “the first time I remember” having to send a substitute spacecraft to the station. “We’ve never had the real need to do this” he mentioned.
NASA and Roscosmos are analyzing choices within the occasion of an emergency that might require the crews to evacuate the station earlier than the rescue Soyuz arrives. The Soyuz crew might nonetheless board its spacecraft and use it as a lifeboat, with out returning to Earth’s ambiance. It additionally is likely to be potential to match a further crew member within the SpaceX Dragon capsule.
The plan now would contain crews going “in your respective vehicles today,” Montalbano mentioned. “But, in parallel, we have been talking to SpaceX and looking at an option of what we can do with the SpaceX vehicle.”
He mentioned NASA officers concurred with Roscosmos’s view that the injury to the Soyuz car docked at the house station was in all probability attributable to a micrometeoroid. He mentioned there was nothing irregular “in the manufacturing of this vehicle.” Earth’s orbit additionally has been flooded with particles from a Russian missile strike on a lifeless satellite tv for pc in 2021 that, at the time, required crews on the house station to shelter of their spacecraft.
Overall, Montalbano mentioned, NASA and Roscosmos “have worked extremely well together, both the technical teams and the management team. It is a true testament to the partnership.”
With a contemporary Soyuz at the station, Krikalev mentioned, the three-member crew’s mission can be prolonged by various months. It’s not clear, although, how the launch of the substitute car would have an effect on NASA’s schedule. For now, SpaceX is predicted to fly one other crew of astronauts to the station in February. “We’ll need a couple more weeks before we’re ready to define a bunch of new launch dates,” Montalbano mentioned.
Crew members on the house station had been in good spirits and persevering with to go about their enterprise, he mentioned. But he added: “I may have to fly some more ice cream up to reward them.”