Russia’s alternative Soyuz spacecraft arrives at ISS to carry again MS-22 crew
MS-23, the Soyuz spacecraft Russia despatched to carry cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio again to Earth, has arrived on the Worldwide Area Station. Per , Russia’s Roscosmos Area Company introduced early Sunday morning that the unmanned vessel docked with the ISS at 7:58PM ET on Saturday night. , the flight launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on February twenty fourth.
MS-23 was initially scheduled to launch later this 12 months, however Roscosmos was pressured to push up the flight after MS-22 – Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio’s unique return craft – in December following a micrometeoroid strike. The incident put Roscosmos and NASA in a difficult spot. If an emergency broke out on the ISS and the complete crew needed to evacuate, it wasn’t clear whether or not MS-22 might carry its crew safely again to Earth. Roscosmos and NASA ultimately settled on a contingency plan that will have seen MS-22 transport Prokopyev and Petelin, whereas Rubio would have hitched a journey on the SpaceX Crew-5 Dragon. Fortunately, the 2 companies weren’t pressured to place that plan to the take a look at.
With MS-23 safely docked with the ISS, Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio will stay on the area station till at the very least September. The three had been initially because of full their mission in March. Within the meantime, Roscomos plans to carry MS-22 again to Earth someday subsequent month.
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