A leak was discovered on a Soyuz capsule, causing a spacewalk to be canceled

The Return of Prokopyev and Petelin to Baikonur, Saudi Arabia During the Spacewalk on SpaceX’s Dragon

During their spacewalk, cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin were scheduled to move a radiator from an older Russian module to a newer science module, which arrived at the station last summer. The spacewalk was halted at the last moment due to a leak on the space station’s airlock.

The two Russian cosmonauts, along with an American, were taken to Baikonur on Sept. 21 from the leaking capsule.

Ground teams at NASA in Houston and at Roscosmos in Moscow are evaluating the potential impacts on the integrity of the Soyuz spacecraft, which is also responsible for bringing them home. The trio is scheduled to return in the capsule in late March.

“The best plan of action tonight was to focus all of our attention to sorting what’s going on exactly with the Soyuz spacecraft and then we’ll regroup tomorrow,” said NASA Chief Flight Director Emily Nelson.

The crew of the space station were told by Russian mission controllers not to open the window shutters while they took a picture of a possible coolant leak and to take the picture at the very best resolution they could. Anna had a robotic arm attached to the station that she used to look at the craft.

Four others are currently on the station: NASA’s Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan’s Koichi Wakata, and Russia’s Anna Kikina. Those four arrived on SpaceX’s Dragon capsule on Oct. 5. Only four crew members can be transported back home in that capsule.

The investigation of the leak in the Progress 82 spacecraft on February 11, 2001, and the date of return of the replacement capsule for NASA’s Space Mission

After NASA found a similar leak in the Progress vehicle that had docked with the space station on February 11, the decision to delay was made.

The replacement capsule was supposed to be launched this month and be used to return cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and NASA artist Frank Rubio.

“The reason for the loss of coolant in the Progress 82 spacecraft is being investigated,” NASA said in a Saturday statement on its site. “The hatches between the Progress 82 and the station are open, and temperatures and pressures aboard the station are all normal. The crew, which was informed of the cooling loop leak, is in no danger and continuing with normal space station operations.”

New images of the vehicle that caused the leak were shared by Roscosmos.