Russia’s Roscosmos announces plan to replace spacecraft

Moscow, Dec 20 (Prensa Latina) The Russian space corporation Roscosmos said that it could send another spacecraft to replace the Soyuz SM-22, attached to the International Space Station (ISS).

According to Roscosmos, everything seems to indicate that the Soyuz spacecraft was hit by a meteorite, which caused some structures to be damaged, according to Sputnik news agency on Monday.

On December 15, it was reported that the cooling system of the spacecraft, attached to the ISS since September, had been damaged possibly by the impact of a micrometeorite, which raised the interior temperature to 30 degrees Celsius.

We have another spacecraft at Baikonur, the Soyuz MS-23, the corporation’s press office reported, and according to protocols, Roscosmos could send a backup spacecraft to the ISS 45 days after an emergency occurs, if it comes to that.

The corporation’s staff detected the location of the possible damage with the help of images sent by Russian cosmonaut Anna Nikina.

Earlier, Roscosmos reported that the temperature inside Soyuz MS-22 was returning to admissible levels thanks to the actions of experts from the Russian Space Flight Control Center.

Currently on the ISS are Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopiev, Dmitry Petelin and Anna Nikina, US austronauts Francisco Rubio, Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann, Japan’s Koichi Wakata.