Expand / Three hours after the coolant leak was initially detected Wednesday night, it was still ongoing.
NASA TV
After working over the weekend to better characterize the damage to its Soyuz spacecraft docked at the International Space Station, Russian specialists have decided not to take any immediate action.
In a lengthy statement released Monday morning by Roscosmos (a VPN is required to access the site from Western nations), the Russian space corporation said it believed a small piece of debris broke an external cooling loop that radiates heat from inside the Soyuz to space. .
Working with NASA on Sunday to operate the Canadarm2 long manipulator arm, Russian specialists could clearly see the damaged area at the aft end of the Soyuz spacecraft. The area of the hole is about 0.8 mm in diameter, which, although small, allowed all of the coolant in the outer loop to spill into the space last Wednesday. Importantly, visual inspection did not uncover any other noticeable damage to the Soyuz vehicle due to debris impact.
Speaking to Russian media on Monday, Roscosmos’ director general said working groups of specialists would spend another week assessing the issue. The decision on future actions will be taken on December 27, Yuri Borisov said. At this point there are two options to consider: fly three crew members back to Earth inside Soyuz MS-22, or autonomously fly the next Soyuz in line, Soyuz MS-23, to the station for the return flight. This Soyuz could be ready to fly on February 19.
announcement
The Soyuz MS-22 crew, cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA’s Frank Rubio, launched to the space station in September. They were due to return to Earth in March before the dramatic coolant leak, which has now delayed two spacewalks aboard the International Space Station as astronauts work with ground controllers to assess damage to the Soyuz.
Without a functional external radiator, there are concerns about overheating the interior of the Soyuz spacecraft. This could damage sensitive flight computers, necessitating manual re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Much of the work over the next week will likely be aimed at understanding how the spacecraft’s internal temperature will change once it leaves the space station.
The Soyuz is actually a rugged spacecraft, built to withstand multiple failures. Russian officials will no doubt be willing to use the existing spacecraft to fly home if possible. That’s because there will be a substantial financial cost if the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft, which was due to carry three new passengers to the station in March, has to be reused for this return flight.
Because Rubio is one of three crew members slated to fly home, NASA is also scrutinizing the data closely. So far, the agency has offered limited public comment on the issue, preferring to give Russian specialists time to work on the problem and make recommendations on next steps.
For now, the biggest risk will come if there’s a health emergency with Prokopyev, Petelin or Rubio, or if there’s a station problem that forces an emergency evacuation. It is not certain at this time that the Soyuz MS-22 will be a capable lifeboat.