Following a meteoroid hit, Russia will launch a mission to rescue the trapped ISS crew

 By Oliver Holmes

Jan 11, 2023 12:04 GMT

Two cosmonauts and a US astronaut who are marooned on the International Space Station are being rescued by the space agency.

                               In order to return three crew members who are essentially stranded in orbit after their initial capsule was struck by a meteoroid, Moscow will deploy a rescue craft to the International Space Station the following month.

Last month, a large leak on the docked Soyuz MS-22 caused radiator coolant to spill into space and forced two cosmonauts to cancel a scheduled spacewalk.

The strike sparked questions about whether everyone aboard the orbiting outpost could return to Earth in an emergency, despite Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, saying there was no imminent threat to the crew of the space station.

The MS-22 was declared unsafe due to the leak's increased cabin temperatures, leaving just one functioning "escape pod" stationed on the ISS—a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. The SpaceX spacecraft only has four seats, although there are seven people on the space station.

Following consideration, Roscosmos said that it has chosen to move forward the Soyuz MS-23's scheduled March launch date to February 20 in order to utilise it to return to Earth the Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin as well as the American astronaut Francisco Rubio.

Before that time, Roscosmos added, the prospect of deploying the damaged Soyuz MS-22 to rescue the crew would be taken into consideration if a "very serious" scenario developed on the ISS.

Originally intended to carry three crew members, MS-23 will depart as a rescue vessel without any crew members. When Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio will return to Earth on the backup Soyuz was not disclosed by Yuri Borisov, the head of Roscosmos.

Once the replacement spacecraft is delivered, the damaged MS-22 will return without a crew, Roscosmos noted.

Human spaceflight is seriously endangered by micrometeoroids, naturally occurring rocks or metal particles that can be as tiny as a grain of sand. They fly around the planet at a speed of roughly 17,000 mph (27,400 km/h), which is far quicker than a bullet.

According to Roscosmos, the micrometeoroid that struck the docked Soyuz had a very small diameter and only left a 1mm-sized hole in the spacecraft. Images from NASA TV showed snowflake-like white particles shooting out of the back, and it did severe damage.

Equipment damage can also result from human-made "space debris." In a 2021 missile test that resulted in clouds of whirling shrapnel, Russia destroyed one of its own satellites.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, space has remained a rare area of collaboration between Moscow and Washington.

Nearly ten years after the conclusion of the cold war and at a period of enhanced US-Russian cooperation, the ISS was launched in phases starting in 1998. In 2031, the ageing space station will be "de-orbited," with a programmed drop into an isolated region of the Pacific.

In the meantime, a fresh space competition is intensifying between the US and China. Beijing's space programme launched its first crewed space station in Earth orbit in 2021. The "heavenly palace"-named 70-ton Tiangong is anticipated to be in use for at least ten years.