Crew to Prepare for Return to Earth Upon Soyuz MS-23's Docking to ISS - Cosmonaut

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd February, 2023) Upon the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft's arrival at the International Space Station (ISS), the crew will make sure that the ship is operational and then arrange cargo there and on the damaged Soyuz MS-22, Russian cosmonaut and chief designer Vladimir Solovyov said on Thursday.

The Soyuz MS-23 will be sent to the ISS without people on board on Friday to bring back the crew of the damaged Soyuz MS-22 spaceship.

"First of all, we allocate a fairly large amount of time to the crew for unloading of the newly arrived Soyuz and equipment placement. Next, we take out all individual equipment, that is lodgements, spacesuits, survival kits, from the Soyuz pierced by a meteoroid, and transfer all this to a new ship," Solovyov said in a video released by Russian state space corporation Roscosmos.

After all the necessary checks of the deployed equipment are complete, the cosmonauts will conduct a motion control system test to ensure that the new spacecraft "is first and foremost able to ensure safe landing of this crew," according to the chief designer.

"Then we will deal with the ship that was damaged by a meteor. Special containers from the arriving Soyuz and cargo being prepared at the station will be packed there. There is a lot of cargo, about 200 items.

.. more than 200 kilograms (440 Pounds). They must be carefully laid out so as not to disturb the balance," Solovyov said.

He added that the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft will have to undergo a control system check after loading, to ensure that everything except for the thermal control systems is operational.

The chief designer specified that in the event of an unforeseen situation, before the arrival of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft at the ISS, the damaged Soyuz MS-22 ship will have to initiate an emergency landing during which its temperature will quickly reach 60-70 degrees Celsius (140-158 degrees Fahrenheit) due to its faulty cooling system. Under such emergency conditions, the spacecraft's computers and devices will fail at temperatures around 40-50 degrees Celsius, Solovyov added.

The Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft suffered depressurization of a thermal circuit on December 14, 2022, shortly before the spacewalk within the Russian program. Due to a non-functioning cooling system, the space corporation decided to send the next Soyuz MS-23 spaceship to the ISS a little earlier than planned to bring back the crew, including Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, as well as US astronaut Frank Rubio. The Soyuz MS-22 will be grounded without a crew after the new spacecraft arrives.