On Dec. 14, because the cosmonauts had been getting ready to depart the station’s airlock to carry out a spacewalk, floor controllers seen 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 extensive. The coolant is used to maintain the capsule at a snug temperature.
Since then, Roscosmos, in cooperation with NASA, had been making an attempt to find out whether or not the spacecraft was match to fly the crew house or if the company wanted to ship up a rescue craft. The groups decided that with out the coolant, temperatures contained in the spacecraft may exceed 100 levels Fahrenheit. The excessive temperature mixed with humidity may 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 on the station, Roscosmos plans to fly, with out crew members, the broken Soyuz again to Earth, the place it is going to be retrieved and inspected.
NASA and Roscosmos have mentioned that the crew members on the station should not 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 persons 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 on the station.
In a name with reporters Wednesday, NASA’s house station program supervisor, Joel Montalbano, sought to downplay the severity of the problem, saying there may be “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 applications, mentioned the companies put together for this form of state of affairs, figuring out 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 ship a alternative spacecraft to the station. “We’ve never had the real need to do this” he mentioned.
NASA and Roscosmos are inspecting choices within the occasion of an emergency that may require the crews to evacuate the station earlier than the rescue Soyuz arrives. The Soyuz crew may nonetheless board its spacecraft and use it as a lifeboat, with out returning to Earth’s ambiance. It additionally is likely to be doable to suit 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 harm to the Soyuz automobile docked on the house station was in all probability brought on by 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, on 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 recent Soyuz on the station, Krikalev mentioned, the three-member crew’s mission could be prolonged by quite a lot of months. It’s not clear, although, how the launch of the alternative automobile 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.”