NASA is considering asking SpaceX to help rescue astronauts trapped in space – metro Puerto Rico

2022 closed out with disturbing news: A group of Russian cosmonauts are stranded on the International Space Station and there is no concrete plan to rescue them.

there was September 2022 When the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, launched its new space mission rocket “Soyuz MS-22”. All this under the pressure and context of the absolute crisis of space cooperation due to the invasion of Ukraine by the government of Vladimir Putin.

In the end, the mission project became a reality and the crew managed to take off aboard the rocket launched from Kazakhstan to go to their final destination: International Space Station (ISS).

Everything seemed to be going well, but at the end of the year it was announced that it had already been discovered. Serious defect Due to a refrigerant leak in the Soyuz MS-22 twin unit.

Because of this, the original mission plan has been completely modified to introduce an exact scenario where the Russian ship cannot separate itself from the International Space Station and the astronauts have no way of returning to Earth.

Tragedy lurks with the astronauts where SpaceX can come to the rescue

The refrigerant leak was mainly caused by the impact of a small meteorite, which caused damage to the outer casing of the service unit.

This situation went relatively unnoticed, but on December 14, the Russian cosmonauts were preparing for a spacewalk when the alert system went off.

The pre-departure routine outside the International Space Station helped detect a dangerous drop in cooling system pressure. There are, in fact, a series of photos that he posted The National Center for Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA, for its English acronym) as a jet of white particles was observed leaking into space.

Such a scenario has left everyone, including the International Space Station crew, stranded in space. Since decoupling the Russian unit could jeopardize the entire safety of the station.

As mentioned Space Policy OnlineUntil January 2023, the authorities will make the final decisions on how to solve everything.

The strongest possibility he assesses so far is asking for help from Elon Musk’s space company, SpaceXso they use one of their ships “Crew Dragon” to rescue the crew and bring them back to Earth.

“We’ve asked SpaceX some questions about their ability to bring additional crew aboard their Dragon ship if needed, but that’s not our primary focus at this time.” A NASA spokesperson said.

Currently, the space station is the crew of the Russian mission: Sergei ProkopievAnd the Dmitry Petlin And an astronaut from Latin America Frank Rubio.

In addition to the original ISS team: the Russian Anna Kikinathe Americans Nicole Mann s Josh Cassada and the Japanese Koichi Wakata.