• Crisis on the International Space Station A leak leaves three astronauts without lifeguards

Russia today launched the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft without a crew on board to the

International Space Station (ISS)

, which will serve to bring back two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut

instead

of the damaged

Soyuz MS-22.

The Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket was launched at 03:24 Moscow time (0.24 GMT), as scheduled by Russia's

Roscosmos space agency,

and the Soyuz MS-23 is scheduled to dock with the ISS on Sunday.

The Soyuz MS-23 will return to Earth next September the Russian cosmonauts

Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitri Petelin,

and the American astronaut of Salvadoran origin

Frank Rubio,

who have been on the ISS since September 21, 2022,

for about six months more than anticipated.

Despite tensions between Russia and

the ISS's Western partners over Russia's military campaign in Ukraine, the space agencies

have not stopped cooperating

over the past year.

Roscosmos made the decision to discard the Soyuz MS-22 for the return of the Russian-American crew to Earth

after

a leak was detected in the ship's cooling system last December.

Subsequently, on February 11, another refrigerant leak was detected in the Russian space freighter

Progress MS-21, which

made the Russian space authorities fear that it was a design flaw and forced them to postpone the launch of the Soyuz. MS-23 until it passed a close inspection.

On February 20, Roscosmos

finally authorized the launch

of the new ship after ruling out failures in the refrigeration system.

The Soyuz MS-23, designed to travel with crew members,

carries 429 kilograms of cargo on board,

which includes medical equipment, means for cleaning the station and control of air purification systems and their balance of gases and supply of water.

It also carries food, clothing, spare parts and equipment for the Russian segment of the station.

In addition, the ship transports to the orbital platform equipment for various scientific experiments of the Russian space agency.

Crew number 68 is now working on the orbital platform, made up of seven people: the Russians

Sergei Prokopiev, Dmitri Petelin and Anna Kikina;

NASA astronauts

Frank Rubio, Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, and Koichi Wakata from Japan.

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