The crew of the International Space Station (ISS) is set to inspect a docked Russian Soyuz spacecraft with a 17-meter-long (56-foot-long) Canadian-made robotic arm after a leak was noticed just before a spacewalk last week, which is suspected of having been caused by a micrometeorite. At the same time, ground controllers consider whether to send up a replacement spaceship to ferry 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 the Soyuz MS-22 where a coolant leak was detected last Wednesday night, U.S. time. After the images are transmitted to the ground on Monday, space officials will analyze them – along with other data about the problem by month's end and decide on the next steps.
One option, Roscomos said, is to expedite 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 up sooner without a crew. That would allow some of the seven crew now on the space station to return home.
A Russian space official said a micrometeorite could have caused the leak last Thursday. Roscosmos said the damage was to the outer skin of an instrument and equipment compartment.
Roscosmos and NASA both say the problem doesn't pose any danger to the crew. The leak prompted 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 worked usually.
Sergei Krikalev, a veteran cosmonaut and director of Roscosmos' crewed space flight programs, said the leak could affect the performance of the capsule’s coolant system and the temperature in the equipment section of the capsule. Russia's Ria-Novosti news agency reported that the capsule's temperature had risen but that ground controllers could reduce it to normal levels. The agency didn't 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 stream of fluid and particles on a live video feed from space, along with a pressure drop on instruments emanating from the Soyuz capsule.
Prokopyev, Petelin, and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio used the capsule to arrive at the International Space Station on Sept. 21, and it serves as a lifeboat for the crew. The capsule was scheduled to return to Earth with some of the space station's crew, as part of regular rotations, next March.
Along with Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio, four other crew members are currently on the space outpost: NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada; the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Koichi Wakata; and Anna Kikina of Roscosmos.
