Russia said on Wednesday it would soon launch an uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft to bring home two cosmonauts and a US astronaut from the International Space Station after the Soyuz MS-22 capsule meant for their return sprang a radiator coolant leak apparently caused by a micrometeorite strike.

Because of the damage, the interior of the capsule could become dangerously hot upon reentry, posing a potential danger to its passengers.

Mission to be extended

The three crew members concerned, Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, will now extend their mission by a few more months and return aboard the new MS-23 capsule, which is to arrive at the ISS on February 20.

The three began their stay at the station in September and were to remain till mid-March.

Sergei Krikalev, executive director of Human Space Flight Programs at Roscosmos, said the MS-22 would return to Earth after their departure, carrying only equipment and experiments that are not "temperature sensitive." 

"Space is not a safe place, and not a safe environment. We have meteorites, we have a vacuum and we have a high temperature and we have complicated hardware that can fail," Krikalev said. "Now we are facing one of the scenarios ... we are prepared for this situation."

He said that if there were to be an emergency at the ISS before the replacement spacecraft arrived, the damaged capsule could still be used in a pinch despite the increased danger.

 Space has remained a rare area in which Moscow and Washington have continued cooperation despite the Russian invasion of Ukraine and consequent Western sanctions on Russia. 

tj/fb (Reuters, AFP)