After Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft suffered a coolant leak in mid-December, NASA may be turning to its commercial partner SpaceX to return three astronauts to Earth.
In a blog post released Friday, NASA he said I have “communicated with SpaceX the possibility of sending additional crew members to Dragon if needed in an emergency.” And the US space agency added that NASA is currently investigating whether the Soyuz spacecraft is capable of carrying astronauts on a return journey from the International Space Station.
The Soyuz spacecraft will deliver NASA astronauts Frank Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petlin to the International Space Station in September 2022. On December 14, the spacecraft launched. Coolant leak in low Earth orbit while attached to the International Space Station. The coolant leak lasted three hours and was captured on live television by NASA. The astronauts aboard the space station were unharmed, but the fate of the three astronauts who returned to Earth in the Soyuz spacecraft is still up in the air.
“NASA and Roscosmos continue to conduct numerous engineering reviews and are consulting with other international partners on ways to safely return the Soyuz crew home under normal and emergency conditions,” NASA wrote in a blog post. The two space agencies are expected to make a final decision on the spacecraft’s viability this month.
However, Roscosmos hopes to make a decision by December 27th The space agency announced that more time was needed To evaluate the flight capabilities of the Soyuz spacecraft. The exact cause of the leak has not been announced, although it could be It is caused by a small meteorite or a small piece of space debris It left a 0.8 mm wide hole in the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft.
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Rubio has since been the first NASA astronaut to fly aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket April 2021last score Venue transfer agreement between the two space agencies. The deal called for an American astronaut to travel in a Soyuz capsule against a Russian astronaut aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon for the first time. If the Soyuz spacecraft is deemed unusable for crew return, NASA could ask SpaceX to send a Dragon crew to pick up three astronauts from the International Space Station and return them to Earth. The astronauts are expected to return in the spring after spending six months on the International Space Station.
furthermore: A Russian cosmonaut forced to abandon a spacewalk due to a power failure in his spacesuit
