Russia Launches Rescue Ship to International Space Station

0:00

/0:00

1×

Facts

• Russia's unmanned 'rescue' spacecraft, which launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday, has arrived in orbit on its mission to return one American and two Russian astronauts from the International Space Station. They were originally intended to ride Soyuz MS-22 back to Earth, however, it was determined to be 'not viable' due to a radiator leak.¹
• Though the spacecraft will dock at the space station on Sunday, Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev, and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, won't return to Earth until later this year.²
• This month’s capsule leak, following one in December, was suspected of being a 'micrometeorite' that pierced an external radiator, draining its coolant. Russia delayed launching its replacement for Soyuz to check for manufacturing defects, but after finding none it sent it into orbit carrying bundles of supplies.³
• Officials determined it would be too dangerous to bring the astronauts back to Earth as originally planned. Without any coolant, the cabin temperature would rise — potentially endangering equipment and the crew.⁴
• Space station-bound capsules usually stay in orbit around the station until its time to bring astronauts back, but this time, the damaged capsule will return to Earth empty so that engineers can examine it — extending the crew's trip to roughly a whole year in space.⁵
• There are currently four other crew members aboard the space station after arriving on a SpaceX Dragon capsule last October as part of the Crew-5 mission. A Crew-6 mission will launch from Florida next Friday to join them and, after a few days of overlap, Crew-5 will return to Earth.²

Sources: ¹Scitechdaily, ²Al Jazeera, ³NBC, ⁴Abc news and ⁵Dw.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Dw. Joint US-Russia space projects have been, and continue to be, isolated from the conflicts back on Earth. Though there has been some talk of Russia leaving the International Space Station, the two global foes have managed to continue working together for the betterment of science and humanity.
• Narrative B, as provided by Daily Caller. It was a short-sighted decision from the US to rely on Russia for the success of its space missions. The recent events in Ukraine underscore the need to immediately break this dependency and for the US to develop its own capabilities.