Russia launches rescue ship to space station after leaks

In this handout photo taken from video released by Roscosmos State Space Corporation, the new, empty Soyuz MS-23 capsule blasts off at the Russian leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on Friday, Feb. 24, 2023. Russia has launched a rescue ship for two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut whose original ride sprang a dangerous leak at the International Space Station. (Roscosmos State Space Corporation via AP)

By MARCIA DUNN: Russia launched a rescue ship on Friday for two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut whose original ride home sprang a dangerous leak while parked at the International Space Station.

The new, empty Soyuz capsule should arrive at the orbiting lab on Sunday.

The capsule leak in December was blamed on a micrometeorite that punctured an external radiator, draining it of coolant. The same thing appeared to happen again earlier this month, this time on a docked Russian cargo ship. Camera views showed a small hole in each spacecraft.

The Russian Space Agency delayed the launch of the replacement Soyuz, looking for any manufacturing defects. No issues were found, and the agency proceeded with Friday's predawn launch from Kazakhstan of the capsule with bundles of supplies strapped into the three seats.

Given the urgent need for this capsule, two top NASA officials traveled from the U.S. to observe the launch in person. To everyone's relief, the capsule safely reached orbit nine minutes after liftoff — “a perfect ride to orbit,” NASA Mission Control's Rob Navias reported from Houston.

Officials had determined it was too risky to bring NASA’s Frank Rubio and Russia’s Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin back in their damaged Soyuz next month as originally planned. With no coolant, the cabin temperature would spike during the trip back to Earth, potentially damaging computers and other equipment, and exposing the suited-up crew to excessive heat.

Until the new Soyuz pulls up, emergency plans call for Rubio to switch to a SpaceX crew capsule that’s docked at the space station. Prokopyev and Petelin remain assigned to their damaged Soyuz in the unlikely need for a fast getaway. Having one less person on board would keep the temperature down to a hopefully manageable level, Russian engineers concluded.

The damaged Soyuz will return to Earth with no one aboard by the end of March, so engineers can examine it.

The three men launched in this Soyuz last September on what should have been a six-month mission. They'll now stay in space for a full year, until a new capsule is ready for their crew replacements for liftoff in September. It was their Soyuz that just launched with no one on board.

The damaged supply ship was filled with trash and cut loose over the weekend, burning up in the atmosphere as originally planned.

“The Russians are continuing to take a really close look” at both spacecraft leaks, NASA's deputy space station program manager Dana Weigel told reporters earlier this week. “They're looking at everything ... to try to understand that."

NASA has a fresh crew of four launching atop a SpaceX rocket early Monday morning from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center. SpaceX's William Gerstenmaier said the four astronauts returning to Earth in a few weeks already have inspected the Dragon capsule that will carry them home and “it all checked out fine."

___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Source: https://yourvalley.net/

Read More........→February 24, 2023

Russia reports ‘non-standard’ air leak on Space Station

Russia said Tuesday that astronauts had found an air leak in its section of the International Space Station, with a senior space official calling the air loss beyond expected levels.

The crew on the ISS — Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner and NASA astronaut Christopher Cassidy — have been searching for the air leak since August, first checking the US segment.

Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, said in a statement that after analysis and a search for the leak “it was established that the spot is located in the Zvezda (star) service module, which contains scientific equipment.”

It said a search was now underfoot to pinpoint the exact location, saying the situation “is not dangerous for the life and health of the ISS crew and does not prevent the ISS continuing manned flight.”

“It’s not critical in the near future,” said Sergei Krikalyov, the executive director of Russia’s manned space programs, in a televised comment.

He said the ISS always has slight air loss due to the air purifying system.

“These leaks are predictable. What’s happening now is more than the standard leakage and naturally if it lasts a long time, it will require supplies of extra air to the station,” he said.

He said the crew were now resting but hoped to find the precise spot and fix the leak on Wednesday.

“That’s not for sure,” he added, saying there was quite a large area to search.

“We have time. The leak exists of course. It’s not good that it’s there, but it’s not critical,” he said.

NASA said that the leak had appeared to grow in size overnight Monday to Tuesday and the crew were awakened by flight controllers to carry out a search.

It was later found that a temperature change had made the leak seem to grow, while the rate of air escaping was “unchanged,” the US space agency said.

Previously, astronauts had searched for the source of the leak in the US segment of the station using an ultrasound detector.

The incident comes after astronauts in 2018 found a hole in the wall of a Russian-made Soyuz space capsule docked onto the ISS.

The cause of the hole has not yet been made public.Three new crew members, Russians Sergei Ryzhikov and Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, are set to arrive in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft due to launch October 14.  Source: https://www.daily-bangladesh.com/

Read More........→December 29, 2020