On December 13, 2022 just before a 7 hour spacewalk on the ISS, camera recordings captured something terrifying. Russia’s loyal Soyuz spacecraft was leaking something out into space. NASA delayed the spacewalk until further notice to investigate what was coming out of Soyuz.
The Soyuz Spacecraft
Soyuz is the longest operating manned spacecraft, its first manned flight was in 1967. It can carry up to three people and has a life system that can keep a crew alive for two months. Sadly also in its history it has also failed 4 times and in those failures 2 of them claimed a total of 4 lives. The other 2 times Soyuz has failed, its high tech system saved itself and the crew. It is Russia’s one and only spacecraft that can take people into space. So as you can imagine, right now it's a little spooked.
The Spacecraft
Soyuz is an expendable spacecraft meaning unlike reusable spacecraft like the Space Shuttle or Orion capsule it can only be used once. Everytime it safely returns a crew to Earth Russia has to make a new one. This Soyuz space capsule that is leaking out fluids is named Soyuz MS-23. It launched a group of three astronauts from Kazakhstan (Russia doesn’t launch their rockets in their country.) In September of 2022, they were supposed to return this March but now that there's clearly something wrong with it. They will have to wait for another Soyuz space capsule to come up to the space station. But they won’t have to wait long, a rescue craft is already planned and should launch to the ISS next month.
What it's leaking
NASA came to a conclusion after surveying it. The spacecraft is leaking out Coolant or what keeps the heat down in the spacecraft. Which is a problem, when the crew returns to Earth, then temperatures would rise above 100 degrees! So the spacecraft is now off limits for the crew onboard.
For now the crew will just have hang tight
Image Source: Space.com