<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">Russia said Wednesday that it will send an empty spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) next month to bring home three astronauts whose planned return vehicle was damaged by a strike from a tiny meteoroid.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, made the announcement after examining the flight worthiness of the Soyuz MS-22 crew capsule docked with the ISS that sprang a radiator coolant leak in December.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Roscosmos and NASA officials said at a joint press briefing that an uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft, MS-23, would be sent to the ISS on February 20 to bring Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio back to Earth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We're not calling it a rescue Soyuz," said Joel Montalbano, ISS program manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "I'm calling it a replacement Soyuz.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Right now the crew is safe onboard the space station."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">MS-22 flew Petelin, Prokopyev and Rubio to the ISS in September after taking off from the Russian-operated Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They were scheduled to return home in the same spacecraft in March, but their stay on the ISS will now be extended by several extra months.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I may have to find some more ice cream to reward them," Montalbano joked.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">MS-22 began leaking coolant on December 14 -- shortly before Russian cosmonauts were to begin a spacewalk -- after being hit by what US and Russian space officials believe was a tiny space rock.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Montalbano said "everything does point to a micrometeoroid" and not space debris, or a technical problem.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The executive director of Human Space Flight Programs at Roscosmos, Sergei Krikalev, said the "current theory is that this damage was caused by a small particle about one millimeter in diameter."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">MS-23 had been scheduled to fly Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and NASA's Loral O'Hara to the ISS on March 16.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">- SpaceX Crew Dragon -</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The decision was made to use MS-23 to fly the current crew home, Krikalev said, because of concerns over potential high temperatures in the damaged MS-22 during reentry to Earth's atmosphere.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said it could still potentially be used "in case of emergency."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another emergency scenario involves using the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule that is currently docked with the ISS after flying four astronauts to the space station in October for a six-month mission.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Montalbano said discussions have been underway with SpaceX about using the Crew Dragon capsule to fly home other astronauts aboard the ISS.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We could safely secure the crew members in the area that the cargo normally returns on the Dragon," Montalbano said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"All that is only for an emergency, only if we have to evacuate ISS," the NASA official stressed. "That's not the nominal plan or anything like that."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Krikalev said an uncrewed MS-22 would return to Earth, probably in March, following the arrival of the replacement vehicle.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It would bring back equipment and experiments that are not "temperature sensitive," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When the original MS-23 crew will get to the ISS is still being worked out, Montalbano added.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Space has remained a rare venue of cooperation between Moscow and Washington since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine and ensuing Western sanctions on Russia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The ISS was launched in 1998 at a time of increased US-Russia cooperation following the Cold War "Space Race."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Russia has been using the ageing but reliable Soyuz capsules to ferry astronauts into space since the 1960s. AFP</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>