WEB DESK
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft has arrived at the International Space Station on a mission to bring three crew members back to earth. The unmanned Soyuz blasted off on Friday from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. About 48 hours later, it docked at the ISS.
It is replacing the original return vehicle that was found to have a coolant leak from a capsule last December. The discovery forced US space agency NASA and Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos to postpone their plan to send the crew back to earth on the vehicle.
It is expected to bring home U.S. astronaut Frank Rubio and Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev in September. The vehicle with the leakage will be separated from the ISS in March to come back to earth without any crew.
NASA says that the leakage did not pose any risks to the seven astronauts at the ISS. Japanese astronaut Wakata Koichi is among them.
There are four others currently on board the ISS, who arrived on a SpaceX Dragon capsule last October as part of the Crew-5 mission.
They are scheduled to be joined next week by members of the Crew-6 mission- two Americans, an Emirati and a Russian – who will also arrive aboard a SpaceX capsule expected to be launched from Florida.