Canadian-Built Robotic Arm Aids Assessment

The Soyuz MS-22 capsule possibly damaged by a micrometeorite was inspected by crewmembers aboard the International Space Station on Sunday, 18 December 2022.

Roscosmos, Russia’s space corporation and arbiter of all Russian Federation extraterrestrial activities, reported a Canadian-built robotic arm had been used to photograph the Soyuz capsule, which had previously been determined to be afflicted with a coolant leak. The images captured by dint of the robotic arm were transmitted to Earth, where engineers are currently about the business of analyzing them in conjunction with additional data for purpose of determining how best to deal with the logistical problems occasioned by the Soyuz capsule’s unforeseen fall from spaceworthiness.

Among the options being considered by Roscosmos is the hastening of a planned delivery of another Soyuz capsule to the ISS. Workers at Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome are preparing for the March 2023 launch of Soyuz MS-23, which is slated to convey three crewmen to the space station. The spacecraft could, however, be dispatched earlier, sans crew, to regain redundancy and capacity lost with the damage of MS-22.

A Russian space official indicated on 15 December that the damage to MS-22 and the resultant coolant leak may be attributable to a micrometeorite which appears to have penetrated the outer skin of one of the craft’s instrument and equipment compartments. Notwithstanding assurances from Roscosmos and NASA that the damage poses no danger to the ISS crew, the leak compelled cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin to abort a planned 14 December spacewalk.

Prokopyev and Petelin were making ready to venture outside the ISS when ground controllers observed—via vehicle telemetry and livestream video—a drop in MS-22’s coolant pressure accompanied by a stream of fluid and particles emanating from the capsule.

Veteran cosmonaut and director of Roscosmos' crewed space flight programs Sergei Krikalev eruditely concluded the coolant leak could adversely affect the performance of MS-22’s coolant system, thereby rendering temperatures within the capsule’s equipment section unstable. Russia's Ria-Novosti news agency set forth that temperatures within the capsule had indeed risen, but that ground controllers had succeeded in returning them to normal levels. The agency—after the slapdash fashion of 21st Century large-market journalism—failed to explain how the temperature was reduced.

NASA reported the damaged capsule's thrusters were tested on 16 December and functioned normally.

Soyuz MS-22 transported Prokopyev, Petelin, and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio to the ISS on 21 September 2022. Thereafter, the craft served as a lifeboat for the space station’s crew. The capsule was scheduled to return a number of ISS personnel to Earth in March 2023 as part of the station’s regular crew rotations.

In addition to Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio, the ISS currently hosts: NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada; the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Koichi Wakata; and Roscosmos’ Anna Kikina.

FMI: www.nasa.gov