After a coolant leak in the Russian Soyuz capsule, NASA is investigating whether SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft can offer an alternative return home journey for some crew members aboard the International Space Station, according to that report in Reuters.
NASA and Russia’s space agency Roscosmos are trying to find the cause of the coolant leak that occurred on Russia’s Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. The spacecraft was expected to bring the three-man crew of two cosmonauts and a US astronaut back to Earth early next year.
In a report in the BBC, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said it was considering sending an empty spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS-ISS) to bring three crew members home ahead of schedule, after the Soyuz capsules began leaking.
“NASA IS CONSIDERING ANOTHER OPTION”
If Russia can’t launch another Soyuz vehicle to bring the crew back to Earth, or if for some reason it decides it would be too risky to do so, NASA is considering another option, Reuters reported.
NASA spokesperson Sandra Jones explained to Reuters that they have asked SpaceX a few questions about their ability to bring back additional crew members with the Dragon spacecraft if needed, but that is not their main focus at this time.
POSSIBILITY OF “CAPACITY INCREASE” AND “EMPTY CAPSULE”
NASA may have asked, for example, if the company could find a way to increase the crew capacity of the Crew Dragon currently docked at the station, or if it could launch an empty capsule to rescue the crew.
But it wasn’t clear what NASA was asking specifically.
The leaky Soyuz capsule took US astronaut Frank Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin to the space station in September for a six-month mission. They were scheduled to return to Earth in March 2023, but the leak has now affected all plans.
Four other crew members of the station, consisting of two NASA astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and a Japanese astronaut, had arrived at the International Space Station in October on the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft has become the centerpiece of NASA’s low-Earth orbit human spaceflight effort. Alongside Russia’s Soyuz program, the Crew Dragon capsule can also bring humans to and from the space station.