A Soyuz spacecraft is safely in orbit en route to the International Space Station (ISS) on a mission to retrieve three crew members whose return to Earth has been delayed by several months because of a leak in the original vessel due to bring them home.
The capsule safely reached orbit nine minutes after liftoff in what NASA described as “a perfect ride to orbit.”
The Soyuz spacecraft, which is flying without a crew, launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan late on February 23 local time. Its mission is to retrieve two cosmonauts and an astronaut who were scheduled to return to Earth in March until a leak was found in the cooling system of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft that was designated to bring them back.
The Soyuz MS-22 transported NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Roskosmos cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin to the space station last September. The three crew members are now scheduled to return to Earth in the replacement capsule, Soyuz MS-23, in September.
The Soyuz MS-23, which is carrying hundreds of kilograms of supplies, is scheduled to dock at the ISS on February 25, NASA said. The damaged MS-22 spacecraft is now scheduled to land without a crew in March.
Two top NASA officials were on hand to observe the launch, which took place after Roskosmos delayed it to allow time for inspections to find any manufacturing defects. No issues were found.
Both NASA and Roskosmos believe the leak on the MS-22 spacecraft was caused by a micrometeoroid -- a particle of space rock -- hitting the capsule at high velocity.
A similar impact is believed to have caused a separate leak this month on the cooling system of the Progress MS-21 cargo ship, which was taken out of orbit last week. Camera views showed a small hole in each spacecraft.
Despite tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow and Washington have continued to partner on space exploration and maintenance of the aging ISS.
