A week after the discovery of a leak in the to the International Space Station ISS docked Soyuzcapsule is still unclear how the damage could have happened – or how it will continue. The Russian space agency Roskosmos may now need an unmanned aerial vehicle Soyuz-Capsule to ISS send to bring astronauts back to earth.
After all, one cause of damage could be ruled out: it was not the annual Geminid meteor shower, as Nasa representatives said on Thursday at a press conference said – he came from a different direction. Video footage continues to be analyzed to determine whether another small space object or material failure caused the nearly one-millimeter leak.
The leak was discovered on Dec. 14 as Russian cosmonauts were getting ready for a spacewalk to install a new solar array. Suddenly the pressure in the coolant tank dropped Soyuz-Capsule off, dramatic Nasa video images show the tank spraying its contents into space. The spacewalk has since been rescheduled, but the leak continues to concern Nasa and Roscosmos.
Whether the capsule is suitable for a manned return flight to earth is questionable
That SoyuzThe spacecraft easily accommodated Russian cosmonauts Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitri Petelin and US astronaut Frank Rubio in September ISS and has been docked ever since, actually to bring the three back to Earth in March and to act as a lifeboat in case the ISS would have to be evacuated. The leak in the tank does not necessarily render the Russian capsule unusable, but whether it is suitable for a manned return flight to Earth is more than questionable.
The Soyuz capsule docked with the International Space Station.
(Photo: Sergei Korsakov/AP)
If the thermal analysis shows that it would get too hot on the return flight, Roskosmos could start the next one, which was previously planned for March Soyuzship may be brought forward to February and the spacecraft will be unmanned instead of with three astronauts on board ISS send. The damaged capsule would then also fly back unmanned.
Should the docked capsule no longer be airworthy, the currently seven astro- and cosmonauts would remain on board the ISS until the arrival of replacement only the Crew Dragon-Capsule by SpaceX as a lifeboat, which brought three astronauts and a cosmonaut to the space station in October. But it is only designed for four people.