A broken Soyuz house capsule returned from the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) at present with no crew. At 7:46 am EDT (5:46 pm native time), the descent module of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft made an automatic parachute floor touchdown in Kazakhstan.
Right this moment’s landing is the most recent chapter in a drama that started on December 14, 2022 when a leak was detected within the coolant system of the Soyuz capsule that carried NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin to the ISS in September 2022.
A preliminary investigation recommended that the craft had been broken by a micrometeorite strike, leaving a 0.8-mm gap within the exterior cooling radiator positioned on the service module. It was decided that the Soyuz was not protected for the astronauts to make use of to return to Earth, so the launch schedules had been juggled and a rescue craft, Soyuz M-23, was despatched to the ISS on February 26. The stranded crew are slated to return this September.
Usually, an uncrewed spacecraft from the ISS could be allowed to dissipate within the Earth’s ambiance, however Roscosmos needed the descent module intact to assist in its investigation of the incident.
Supply: NASA
