Stranded ISS crew to get a new spacecraft

Stranded ISS crew to get a new spacecraft
Posted by

Dave Adalian



February 22, 2023

Stranded ISS crew: Expedition 68 crew members Dmitri Petelin of Roscosmos, top, Frank Rubio of NASA and Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos, bottom, wave farewell prior to boarding the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft for launch on September 21, 2022. Rubio, Prokopyev and Petelin launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, for a mission to ISS. But the Soyuz MS-22 sprung a leak, leaving the crew safe, secure and (sort of) stranded. Now Russia is launching another Soyuz on Friday, February 24, 2023, to bring the crew home … in September. Image via Bill Ingalls/ NASA/ Wikimedia Commons.

Stranded ISS crew (sort of)

Several media sources are reporting this week on an upcoming launch by Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, to provide a ride home for two cosmonauts and one U.S. astronaut currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The launch is scheduled for Friday, February 24, 2023 (overnight on February 23, according to clocks in the U.S.).
The space travelers – Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, and U.S. astronaut Frank Rubio – are aboard ISS without a designated ship to get home. That’s because the crew capsule that carried them to ISS (Soyuz MS-22) sprang a very visible coolant leak in its radiator cooling loop – apparently from a micrometeoroid collision – in December.
The Russian ship had delivered the three new crew members to ISS on September 21, 2022. While docked at ISS, videos acquired in December 2022 showed the Soyuz spraying a “snowstorm” of particles into space. Turns out the leak was the reason, leaving the astronauts without a completely reliable ride home.
The crew’s mission was supposed to end in March. Then, Roscosmos made the decision to leave the crew in place within ISS until September. Still, in case ISS needs to be evacuated, all concerned prefer that the crew have a fully functioning ship.

Leaky Soyuz at ISS: A Russian crew capsule – Soyuz MS-22 – leaked coolant into space while docked at the International Space Station on Wednesday, December 14, 2022. Image via NASA TV.

This Friday’s ‘rescue’ mission for stranded ISS crew

Roscosmos has been planning to send up another uncrewed ship to the ISS for the “stranded” crew to return home in (other vessels currently docked at ISS could squeeze them in with the four other crew members currently at ISS, but that option isn’t ideal).
Roscosmos made the date of the uncrewed ship launch official this past Monday (February 20), when the Russian state news agency TASS reported that the State Commission formally granted a permit for launch. And so they are now scheduled to launch on Friday, February 24, 2023.
The three crew members – part of the seven-member team composing Expedition 68 – were originally supposed to return to Earth in March 2023. In the new plan, they will extend their stay until September 2023.
Space.com reported that the reason they are extending their stay in orbit an extra six months is because the:

next Soyuz [the Soyuz launching Friday] will stay docked at the ISS until its successor – a vehicle that will carry crew – is ready to go.

Launch of the Soyuz MS-23 from Russia will be at 3:24 a.m. Moscow time on Friday, February 24. That translates to 00:24 UTC on February 24, or 6:24 p.m. CST on February 23.
The Soyuz MS-23 launch was originally scheduled for February 20, but faced a delay due to a second leaky spacecraft.

A 2nd leak, in a 2nd craft

In February, Roscosmos detected a second spacecraft docked at the ISS was also leaking. This second spacecraft is a supply ship named Progress 82 and known as Progress MS-21 to the Russians. The supply ship launched back on October 28, 2022, and reached the ISS without incident and docked successfully.
After discovering the leak on February 11, engineers undocked Progress 82 from the ISS on February 18. They took photos to inspect the craft. Then, loaded with trash, Progress 82 fired its engine to de-orbit. Less than an hour later, it impacted in the Southern Pacific Ocean. (This area is nicknamed the spacecraft cemetery, because it is an uninhabited area targeted for re-entry of spacecraft such as the former Mir space station.)

Micrometeoroids likely cause of leaks

Roscosmos believes the sources of both leaks are tiny bits of rock and other material in space (micrometeoroids). On February 21, Anatoly Zak at RussianSpaceWeb.com reported that Roscosmos said:

Based on the preliminary assessment of the situation with Progress MS-21 at RKK Energia, the cargo ship had experienced an external impact … This conclusion was made based the photos which revealed changes on the exterior of the vehicle … the holes discovered (on the photos after undocking) had not been seen either during the manufacturing of the Progress MS-21 at the factory, nor during its preparation for launch, nor during its flight and docking with the ISS.

Despite two recent leaks due to possible micrometeoroid strikes, all sources agree that the likelihood of another impact to the soon-to-launch Soyuz MS-23 is low.


Anatoly Zak
@RussianSpaceWeb

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"External impact" blamed for coolant loss (...again, this time on the Progress MS-21 cargo ship). DETAILS: https://russianspaceweb.com/progress-ms-21.html#0221


7:41 AM · Feb 21, 2023



Bottom line: The Russians will launch an empty space capsule to the space station on Friday for the stranded ISS crew to eventually ride home in.
Via NPR

THANKS TO: https://earthsky.org/spaceflight/stranded-iss-crew-feb-2023-soyuz/?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=4574ed0f27-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_02_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-4574ed0f27-393775709&mc_cid=4574ed0f27&mc_eid=87f7e1dbd6