Three crew members on the International Space Station, who have to stay there for the time being because their spaceship broke down, won’t return to Earth until September. Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, said their mission would be extended by about six months.
Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petlin and American cosmonaut Francisco Rubio went to the International Space Station last September. The crew usually returns in March. In mid-December, the Soyuz spacecraft had a leak, which means they cannot return with this spacecraft.
To gather the crew, Russia sends a replacement spaceship to the International Space Station. It should start on Friday. Once the variant arrives, the punctured spacecraft will return to Earth without humans on board.
The leak in the spaceship was likely caused by a so-called micrometeorite, which is a small, grainy piece of space in space. The coolant flows from the radiator through a hole less than 1 millimeter in size.
The average speed of micrometeorites is about 100,000 kilometers per hour near Earth, and the International Space Station orbits Earth at more than 27,000 kilometers per hour. At such speeds, small collisions can indeed cause massive damage. Large pieces of space debris are occasionally splattered by the International Space Station, but they can be tracked from Earth with radar images, and the small grains are not visible.
look. Pictures Show Russia’s Soyuz Capsule Leaking: Is It Dangerous?
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