Moscow.- The two cosmonauts Sergei Prokopiev and Dmitri Petelin, and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio may be evacuated from the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, in which a leak was detected in December, and from the Crew Dragon American in case of an emergency.
Prokopiev and Petelin, as well as Rubio, of Salvadoran origin, are scheduled to return to Earth on the Soyuz MS-23, which will take off from the Kazakh steppe on February 20 and dock with the International Space Station (ISS) in automatic mode. two days later.
“The ISS and Soyuz MS-22 systems are working normally, but in the event of an accident, the crew will need an emergency evacuation to Earth. It was decided to temporarily transfer Frank Rubio’s seat from the Soyuz MS-22 to the American Crew Dragon spacecraft,” Roscosmos stressed.
The Russian space agency pointed out that this decision has been made because the descent of two astronauts instead of three will be safer, since it will help reduce the temperature and humidity in the Soyuz MS-22.
If there is no emergency situation before the arrival of the Soyuz MS-23, the three astronauts, including Rubio, will return to Earth as planned in that second Russian spacecraft, Roscosmos said.
The rescue of the Russian and American ISS crew members comes after the crew members of the Russian segment reported to the Ground Control Center in December that the pressure had dropped in the cooling system on the Soyuz MS-22, which pointed to to a leak
The damage, confirmed visually later, occurred to the hull of the equipment and propellant segment of the Soyuz.
Information from Efe.