A few months have passed International Space station there is some tension. The large scientific platform, run by the world’s five largest space agencies, is not at its best. HE last decemberThe impact of a small meteorite caused structural damage to the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft (one of the vehicles used to transport astronauts), forcing it to abort its spin, and in doing so, left three crew members ‘trapped’ in space facilities. Russia is now completing a rescue mission to bring it back to Earth. two Russian cosmonauts Dmitri Petelin and Sergei Prokopiev and american astronaut Frank Rubio, who had to “extend his stay” because of this incident.
This russian space agencyhas been planning the operation for weeks in collaboration with its US counterparts. The plan is to launch a new Soyuz spacecraft into space, send it to the International Space Station, have it replace the damaged capsule, and use operational aircraft from there. Bring back three ‘trapped’ astronauts. Initially, the rescue mission was to launch on February 20, but as announced by Roscosmos, detection of a new crack On one of the Russian cargo ships (known as the Progress MS-21), the rescue mission was again forced to delay its departure.
After the detection of this last fault, Russia, postponed the task Until the beginning of March, or at least until we fully understand what caused this second incident on one of their ships. But this Saturday, against all odds, the heads of the Russian space agency were launched. two surprise announcements. On the one hand, the departure of the Soyuz MS-23 was delayed to three in the morning (Moscow time) next Friday, February 24. On the other hand, it was announced that the damaged cargo ship was found recently. iron out from space facilities and will fall into the Pacific.
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The failure of the Russian spacecraft not only “prolonged” the three astronauts currently in orbit, but also upset the schedule of subsequent space missions. In fact, at the beginning of the year, American astronauts Laurel O’Hara and Russians Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub were expected to arrive at the International Space Station, but their mission was interrupted due to events in recent months. has been postponed to next fall at least.
The US agency NASA, for its part, states that it has to do this. reconfigure your task scheduleto deal with recent events on the space platform (possibly something that will cause at least one of the missions scheduled for the coming months to be delayed). Likewise, the Americans have offered the Russians the possibility of using the American private company SpaceX’s Crew-5 spacecraft to facilitate the return of crew ‘stuck’ in orbit, but for now the proposal seems to be working. not accepted. Russia is determined achieve the rescue at your own expense.