The return to Earth of the three cosmonauts (two from Moscow, one from the United States), scheduled for March 28, has been postponed: they will have to live together for another six months
The new launch
From the base of Baykonur, in the steppe of Kazakhstan, on Friday 24 February the Soyuz MS-23 will be launched (empty) which will recover the three on the ISS, to which it will join two days later. This emergency launch was supposed to take place on February 18, but the discovery of an unexpected coolant leak on the Progress supply freighter, attached to the Space Station, has involved an accurate analysis of the radiators of the Soyuz still on the ground. Not having encountered any structural problems, the green light was given for the launch. The Russian space agency has published a photo of the 12 mm diameter “hole” that had formed on Progress and this too has been attributed to a micrometeorite. The freighter was returned and disintegrated over the South Pacific on Sunday. The damaged Soyuz MS-22 will be launched unmanned to avoid any problems for the astronauts in the delicate re-entry phase.
Previous
It is not the first time that the return of astronauts has been postponed due to various problems. Cosmonaut Piotr Doubrov and astronaut Mark Vande Hei in 2021 stayed in orbit six months longer than expected. Samantha Cristoforetti’s first mission was also extended by about a month in 2015 due to a technical problem. The Space Station is one of the few sectors where cooperation between Russians, Americans and Europeans has remained active since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which began on February 24, 2022.
February 21, 2023 (change February 22, 2023 | 07:53)
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