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Progress MS-21 cargo spaceship (picture from October 2022)
Photo: NASA / dpa
Instead of next month, the Russian space agency Roskosmos does not want to bring three astronauts stuck on the international space station ISS back to Earth until September - and thus a year after their departure.
According to the current status, the return flight with the Soyuz MS-23 is planned for September, announced Roskosmos.
The US astronaut Frank Rubio and the two Russian cosmonauts Sergei Prokopjew and Dmitri Petelin were originally supposed to fly back to Earth in the Soyuz MS-22 at the end of March.
After a leak was discovered in the spacecraft's cooling system in mid-December, the astronauts who have been stationed on the ISS since September are now to be picked up by the Soyuz MS-23.
No health hazard
According to Roskosmos, the Soyuz MS-23 is scheduled to take off from the cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, next Friday, but will not return to Earth until September.
According to Roskosmos, the astronauts have responded positively to the extension of their mission on the ISS, and the longer stay in space does not pose a risk to their health.
Meanwhile, the defective Soyuz MS-22 space capsule is to be brought back to earth unmanned from the International Space Station ISS at the end of March.
The person responsible for the Russian part of the ISS, Vladimir Solovyov, said on Monday on Russian television.
According to the Interfax news agency, he did not give an exact date.
According to the plan of the Russian space agency, the capsule should bring 200 to 250 kilograms of cargo and land like a manned spaceship on parachutes in the Kazakh steppes.
In the past few weeks, Russian engineers have been dealing with leaks on two space capsules on the ISS.
The malfunctioning cargo spaceship Progress MS-21 was undocked and crashed in a controlled manner on Sunday;
the last debris fell into the Pacific.
ani/AFP/dpa
