It has been several weeks since a Russian Soyuz spacecraft docked at the International Space Station (ISS) sprung a coolant leak. NASA has been working on potential emergency evacuation plans, to say nothing of how the station would handle regular crew rotations without that vehicle. Now, Russia’s Rosocosmos has decided on a course of action. It will move the next Soyuz launch forward, ensuring the crew will have a way back to Earth, but this could mean a longer stay on the ISS for those assigned to Russia’s spacecraft.
Anyone who watched the dramatic video of the leak last month will be unsurprised by this, but Russia and NASA have opted not to use the MS-22 spacecraft for human transportation. Without a working cooling system, the interior of the vessel could reach 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius), and it takes upwards of six hours for Soyuz to reach the surface after leaving the ISS.
The Roscosmos solution is simply to accelerate plans to launch another Soyuz, with the launch planned for Feb. 20. Previously, MS-23 was slated to head into space in March with a new crew aboard, but now it will be launched as soon as possible to give the station enough seats for emergency evacuation. NASA has been in talks with SpaceX to devise a plan to use the Crew Dragon to get all seven crew members back to Earth if need be. The plan involves securing three passengers in the cargo hold, as there are only four seats in the spacecraft.
The Soyuz is one of the most reliable human-rated vessels in the world, but it’s non-reusable. That means Roscosmos has to build a new one for each mission. It’s currently working on MS-23 and seems to believe it can launch in the next several weeks. That will bring the lifeboat complement back to normal, but losing MS-22 will delay the next crew rotation. MS-22 will be used to send equipment and experiments back to Earth, but the original MS-22 crew of astronaut Frank Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin could be looking at almost a year total in space before the next relief crew can arrive on the MS-24. Before MS-22 can be sent on its way, the crew will have to transfer equipment to MS-23 upon its arrival.
This scheduling change could cause additional launch delays as ISS partners adjust to the unplanned Soyuz launch. SpaceX is currently mulling a delay to the Crew-6 mission, which was targeting a mid-February launch. One upshot: MS-23 could be loaded with additional supplies in place of its human crew when it launches in the next few weeks. Joel Montalbano, NASA’s space station program manager, joked in the media briefing that they should include some ice cream to make up for the delay.
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