“planned” launch of a rescue vessel by Russia to the ISS on February 24

Russia “has planned” to send a rescue ship on February 24 to bring back three crew members currently on board the International Space Station (ISS), a few days after postponing its launch due to a leak on another ship docked to the ISS. “The launch is scheduled for February 24”, announces to AFP an internal source at the Russian space agency Roscosmos. The latter specifies that the final decision must be taken by the State Commission which must meet “shortly”.

Earlier Saturday, Roscosmos said in a statement that “the Council of Leading (Aerospace) Designers recommended to the State Commission to schedule the launch of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft (…) from Baikonur on February 24 at 3:34 Moscow time” (1h34 in Paris). On Monday, the Russian space agency announced that it was postponing the launch of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft, which was supposed to bring three astronauts back to Earth, to the beginning of March at the latest.

The damage detected occurred two months after a first leak in another spacecraft docked at the International Space Station, which was already supposed to bring two Russian cosmonauts and their American colleague Frank Rubio back to Earth. Faced with the impossibility of using the damaged capsule, Roscosmos announced in mid-January that it wanted to use another vessel, the Soyuz MS-23, to go to the ISS to recover the crew.