NASA provided an update Thursday on a coolant leak from a Russian space capsule attached to the International Space Station.
The leak happened last week as two Russian cosmonauts were preparing to exit the space station for a spacewalk.
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NASA’s Johnson Space Center said Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin were not in danger, nor were other astronauts on the space station.
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 MS-22 capsule that had carried Prokopyev and Petelin, along with NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, to the International Space Station in September. The leak was continuing from the Soyuz capsule, docked to one of the space station’s modules, hours after its discovery.
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We will host a media teleconference at 11am ET (1600 UTC) on Dec. 22 to discuss the ongoing investigation of an external leak from the Soyuz spacecraft docked to the International Space Station. https://t.co/iSFtDVKuPI pic.twitter.com/1TZATOtX1Z
— NASA (@NASA) December 21, 2022
Russian space officials said the leak may have been caused by a micrometeorite.
Joel Montalbano, program manager of the International Space Station, said imagery needs to be done to determine if it was a meteorite hit or a hardware issue.
On Monday, Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos said the leak doesn’t require evacuation of its crew, but the agency kept open the possibility of launching a replacement capsule, if needed.
“We don’t have a final decision,” Sergei Krikalev of Roscosmos said.
Roscosmos said a panel of experts would determine later this month whether the Soyuz MS-22 capsule could be safely used by the crew for its planned return to Earth or if it should be discarded and replaced.
NASA’s manager of the International Space Station Joel Montalbano said the next Soyuz vehicle could be launched in late February, pending Russia’s decision.
“If it’s decided that it’s an uncrewed Soyuz, Roscosmos would plan to return the current Soyuz on orbit and collect the data so that they can use that for future evaluations of missions,” Montalbano said.
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