A stream of particles, which NASA says looks like a liquid and possibly a coolant, is flowing from the International Space Station’s Soyuz spacecraft, forcing two Russian cosmonauts to postpone plans for a routine spacewalk for December 14, 2022 in this still captured from a video .
TVNASA | via Reuters
NASA is exploring whether SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft could offer alternative flights for some International Space Station crew members after a Russian capsule leaked coolant while docked in an orbiting laboratory.
NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos are investigating why cooling ducts punctured the external radiator of the Russian Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, which is expected to carry a crew of two cosmonauts and an American astronaut to Earth early of next year.
But on December 14th lostAND Draining the Soyuz of vital fluids used to regulate crew cabin temperatures hampered Russian space station procedures as engineers in Moscow weighed whether to launch another Soyuz to recover a three-man team that had flown to the Space Station International with a decommissioned MS. 22. . .
If Russia is unable to launch another Soyuz, or for some reason decides it would be too risky to do so, NASA is considering other options.
“We’ve asked SpaceX several questions about its ability to return additional crew aboard Dragon if needed, but that’s not our main focus at this time,” NASA spokeswoman Sandra Jones said in a statement to Reuters.
SpaceX did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
It’s unclear what specifically NASA requires from SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capability, such as whether the company can find a way to increase the capacity of the Crew Dragon currently docked at the station or launch an empty capsule to rescue the crew.
But the company’s possible participation in the Russian-led mission underscores the level of precaution NASA is taking to ensure astronauts return safely to Earth, should any of Russia’s other contingency plans fail.
The leaking Soyuz capsule carried US astronaut Frank Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petlin to the space station in September for a six-month mission. They are expected to return to Earth in March 2023.
The station’s four other crew members — two more from NASA, a third Russian astronaut and a Japanese astronaut — arrived in October via NASA’s SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, also still parked on the International Space Station.
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, a bubblegum-shaped capsule with four astronaut seats, has been at the center of NASA’s human spaceflight efforts in low Earth orbit. Other than the Russian Soyuz program, it is the only entity capable of bringing humans to the space station and vice versa.
Finding the cause of the leak can inform decisions about the best way to get the crew back. A puncture caused by the air conditioning, the impact of space debris or damage to the instrumentation of the Soyuz capsule itself are three possible causes of the leak being investigated by NASA and Roscosmos.
Mike Suffredini, who led NASA’s International Space Station program for a decade until 2015, said the hardware failures could raise further questions for Roscosmos about the safety of other Soyuz vehicles, such as those that could be sent to save Earth. crew.
He said, “I can assure you it’s something they’re looking at, to see what’s out there and if there’s any concern about it.” “The thing about Russia is they’re very good at not talking about what they’re doing, but they’re very specific.”
Roskosmos head Yuri Borisov had previously said engineers would decide on Tuesday how to get the crew back to Earth, but the agency said that day it would make a decision in January.
NASA previously said the capsule’s temperature remained “within acceptable limits,” as the crew compartment is currently vented with airflow permitted through the open hatch to the International Space Station.
Sergey Krikalev, head of Russia’s manned space program, told reporters last week that temperatures would rise rapidly if the station’s hatches were closed.
Jones said NASA and Roscosmos were primarily focused on determining the cause of the leak, as well as the health of MS-22, which was also intended as a lifeboat for the three crew members in case of an emergency at the station. required evacuation.
At first, the recent meteor shower seemed to raise the possibility of a definite meteor impact as the cause, but the spill was headed in the wrong direction, Joel Montalbano, program manager at NASA’s International Space Station, told reporters last week. . , apart from the possibility of stone.satellite. It comes from another direction.
And if some space debris is to blame, that could raise concerns about the increasingly chaotic orbital environment and raise questions about whether critical equipment like spacecraft cooling ducts need to be protected by a debris shield, like other spacecraft parts. .
“We are not protected from everything around the space station,” Suffredini said. We cannot be protected from everything.
