Soyuz Leaking at ISS

DEVELOPING STORY

The Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft that is docked to the ISS is currently leaking unknown particles into space.

Russian flight controllers noted a warning light indicating low pressure in a Soyuz external cooling loop right around the time the particle stream was first detected; not known what might have caused the presumed leak

Leak appears to be coming from the instrumentation and propulsion module of the Soyuz.

Roscosmos and NASA are currently investigating.

December 18th - 18:20 UTC - TASS, a Russian state news agency has confirmed ROSCOSMOS are accelerating preparations for Souz MS-23 to allow for an uncrewed launch in case Soyuz-MS22 is deemed unusable to return its crew from the ISS due to the coolant leak.

"Preparations for the launch of the Soyuz MS23 ship are underway at the Baikonur spaceport. If the need arises, they can be stepped up to send the spacecraft to the ISS earlier than scheduled,"

December 20th, statement from ROSCOSMOS Dirctor

“I believe that at the end of December, specialists … will decide on how we will resolve this situation,” Yuri Borisov, Director of ROSCOSMOS.

December 28th

"We have asked SpaceX a few questions on their capability to return additional crew members on Dragon if necessary, but that is not our prime focus at this time," , NASA spokeswoman Sandra Jones says in a statement to Reuters.

"It's unclear what exactly NASA asked, could be possibility of launching an un-crewed Dragon to serve as a life boat or expanding Crew-5 Dragon (or Crew-6) to accommodate additional Crew for the trip home. Crew 5 should be returning in February which would line up nicely with when the Crew of 3 were originally expected to come home aboard Soyuz MS-22 Only thing is Russia would have no cosmonauts on Station depending on whether MS-23 is fit to fly which I think they'll do a full investigation to find the cause of the hole first." - Jay, TLP Contributor.

Stay tuned for more updates.