ISS Uncontrolled fluid leak from Soyuz capsule  

Upcoming spacewalk postponed

Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin donned their suits and were ready for a seven-hour spacewalk when they noticed some low pressure readings. The Soyuz MS-22 capsule which is docked to the International Space Station (ISS) had a coolant leak and as Roscosmos later confirmed, the source of the leak was the capsule’s external cooling system which appears to have been hit by something. Astronauts inside the ISS were not endangered or exposed to the coolant.

Roscosmos is closely monitoring the temperatures inside the Soyuz, which are within acceptable limits. NASA and Roscosmos continue to coordinate images from outside the station to assess the location of the leak.

In the cover image, which comes from NASA’s livestream, the particles that have been blasting for hours from the Soyuz are clearly visible. Roscosmos suspects that a micrometeorite hit the Soyuz capsule at that point, causing the leak.

The capsule is scheduled to return the two astronauts and astronaut Frank Rubio to Earth in March. If the damage is beyond repair, another vessel will have to be sent to pick them up.