New Russian Soyuz Docks at ISS to Replace Leaky Craft

An uncrewed Soyuz capsule arrived at the International Space Station’s Poisk module on Saturday to replace the leaky MS-22 craft.

A planned Russian spacewalk was canceled in December when the Soyuz docked to the ISS sprung a leak. The likely culprit: a micrometeoroid or piece of space debris that punctured a coolant line on an external radiator of the craft that’s only occasionally visited by cosmonauts.

Russia’s Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, as well as NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, hitched a ride on the Soyuz in September, and were slated to take it back home next month. But officials agreed it would be unsafe for them to travel in the MS-22 without coolant, as interior temperatures could rise to levels too high for human safety.

Instead, the three crew members will make the trip in the new Soyuz MS-23 “later this year,” according to NASA(Opens in a new window), which didn’t specify an exact date.

The damaged MS-22 is scheduled to undock from the station in late March and make a crewless return to Earth for a parachute-assisted landing in Central Asia and post-flight analysis by Roscosmos.

MS-23, carrying 946 pounds of supplies, arrived at the Station just before 8 p.m. EST, following a two-day journey from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The rendezvous, as reported by NASA, occurred while the spacecraft were flying 260 miles above northern Mongolia.

The ISS is about to get even more crowded: After scrapping its Monday launch attempt, a SpaceX Crew Dragon is expected to lift off on Thursday with four people aboard.