If a thermal analysis – which assesses how hot it will be inside the cabin – concludes the MS-22 is unsuitable for crewed flight, a scheduled launch of another Soyuz capsule in mid-March from the Baikonur Cosmodrome The top can be carried, and it will be launched without a crew, he said.
“They’re looking at the end of February to send the next Soyuz vehicle,” said Joel Montalbano, NASA’s International Space Station program manager, who was also on the call.
If this were the case, the damaged spacecraft would return to Earth without the crew.
The MS-22 flew Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev, as well as NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, to the ISS in September.
There are currently seven people aboard the orbital outpost, but if the MS-22 is deemed unfit, it would also mean the ISS only has one “lifeboat” capable of carrying four people, if evacuated. need to.
Americans Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann, Japan’s Koichi Wakata and Russia’s Anna Kikina arrived on the SpaceX Crew Dragon in October.