The International Space Station (ISS) crew is set to inspect a docked Russian Soyuz spacecraft with a Canadian-made 17-meter-long (56-foot-long) robotic arm after a leak was noticed just before a spacewalk last week. which is suspected to have been caused by a micrometeorite. At the same time, ground controllers consider whether to send a replacement spacecraft to transport some of them home.
Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos said the crew was using a camera on a Canadian-built robotic arm to capture images of Soyuz MS-22 where a coolant leak was detected last Wednesday US time. Once the images are beamed back to Earth on Monday, space officials will analyze them, along with other data about the problem later this month, and decide next steps.
One option, Roscomos said, is to speed up the delivery of another Soyuz capsule to the space station. Workers at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan are preparing to launch Soyuz MS-23 to the space station next March with three crew members, but could send it without a crew sooner. This would allow some of the seven crew members now on the space station to return home.
A Russian space official said a micrometeorite may have caused the leak last Thursday. Roscosmos said the damage was to the outer skin of an instrument and equipment compartment.
The International Space Station. (AP Photo)
Both Roscosmos and NASA say the problem poses no danger to the crew. The leak caused a pair of Russian cosmonauts to abort a scheduled spacewalk last Wednesday. An American spacewalk is planned for next Wednesday.
NASA said the Soyuz capsule’s thrusters were tested last Friday and were operating normally.
Sergei Krikalev, a veteran cosmonaut and director of Roscosmos’ manned space flight programs, said the leak could affect the performance of the capsule’s cooling system and the temperature in the capsule’s equipment section. Russia’s Ria-Novosti news agency reported that the capsule’s temperature had risen, but ground controllers could bring it down to normal levels. The agency did not explain how the temperature was reduced.
Last Wednesday, as Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin were about to venture outside the station on the spacewalk, ground specialists saw a flow of fluids and particles in live video from the space, together with a pressure drop in the instruments emanating from the Soyuz. capsule
Prokopyev, Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio used the capsule to reach the International Space Station on September 21, and it serves as a lifeboat for the crew. The capsule was scheduled to return to Earth with part of the space station crew, as part of regular rotations, next March.
Along with Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio, four other crew members are currently at the space outpost: NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada; Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency; and Anna Kikina from Roscosmos.
The Sabah Daily Gazette
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