The launch of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft is expected to return three astronauts to Earth after a new leak was discovered aboard another spacecraft docked with the ISS.
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Posted on 2/18/2023 3:37 PM Updated on 2/18/2023 3:40 PM
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Russia “planned” to send a rescue ship on Feb. 24 to bring back three crew members currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS), days after the launch was postponed due to a leak on another spacecraft docked with the ISS . “The launch is scheduled for February 24,” an inside source at Russia’s Roscosmos space agency told AFP. The latter stipulates that the final decision must be made by the State Commission, which must meet “soon”.
Earlier on Saturday, Roscosmos clarified in a statement that “the Council of Leading (Aerospace) Designers of the State Commission has recommended the launch of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft (…) from Baikonur on February 24 at 3:34 am o’clock Moscow time”. (1h34 in Paris). On Monday, the Russian space agency announced that it would postpone the launch of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft, which was supposed to bring three astronauts back to Earth, to early March at the latest.
The damage identified occurred two months after an initial leak in another spacecraft docked with the International Space Station, which was already scheduled to return to Earth two Russian cosmonauts and their American colleague Frank Rubio. Faced with the impossibility of using the damaged capsule, Roscosmos announced in mid-January that it would use another ship, the Soyuz MS-23, to fly to the ISS to recover the crew.
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