ISS
The launch of the uncrewed Soyuz MS-23 spaceship to the International Space Station (ISS) has been postponed until early March, Roscosmos head Yury Borisov confirmed Feb. 13.
The mission had been expected to lift off from Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan on Feb. 20 to serve as a replacement ship for cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio.
Borisov explained in a video statement that the launch delay was caused by the need to investigate the reason for a coolant leak on the Progress MS-21 resupply vehicle. It arrived at the ISS in October 2022 and experienced a coolant leak in the instrument department on Feb. 11. This was shortly after another cargo ship, Progress MS-22, docked to the station. Borisov said Roscosmos would now review the ship’s manufacturing process for a possible reason for the incident.
Meanwhile, he insisted the reason for similar incident with Soyuz MS-22 in December was an external impact by a micrometeoroid or space debris. Roscosmos later published a photo of the penetrated area made by the camera from the ISS Canadarm manipulator. It shows a hole in the Soyuz MS-22 radiator with the traces of leaked coolant around it.
Borisov confirmed last week that because of the ship replacement, Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio, who initially were to return on Earth in March, would now stay at the ISS for six more months, until September 2023.
