An unmanned Russian Soyuz capsule has arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). Later this year, it will bring two Russians and an American back to Earth.
A live broadcast from the US Space Agency (NASA) showed that the MS-23 capsule automatically connected to the International Space Station on Sunday night. By then, the ship had been two days into its journey from the launch base in Kazakhstan.
The Russian space agency Roskosmos decided to launch MS-23 as a replacement for another Soyuz capsule already on the space station.
The capsule to be replaced, MS-22, began leaking coolant in December after it was struck by what U.S. and Russian officials believe was a small meteorite. Thus, the MS-22 capsule is considered too unsafe to transport the three astronauts back to Earth. The plan is to send an unmanned MS-22 capsule back to Earth at the end of March. Back on Earth, experts will assess the damage to the ship.
American Frank Rubio and Russians Dmitry Betley and Sergey Prokopyev will be on the International Space Station until September. Then they stayed at the station for a year.
In addition, there are four other astronauts on the International Space Station. They arrived in SpaceX’s Dragon capsule in October. These four will return to Earth a few days after another Dragon capsule arrives with two astronauts from the United States, one from the Emirates and one from Russia. This capsule will be sent out on Monday.
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