To create conditions before the landing of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) was adjusted – its average height was increased by 3.2 km. About it February 20 reported in the press service of Roskosmos.
It is specified that the maneuver was performed using the engines of the Progress MS-22 cargo ship, which were turned on at 07:20 Moscow time and worked for 958 seconds. Thus, the average height of the station’s orbit increased by 3.2 km and amounted to 418.9 km above the Earth’s surface.
Roskosmos recalled that the landing of the spacecraft is planned for March 2023.
Cosmonauts Sergei Prokopiev, Dmitry Petelin and Anna Kikina, as well as NASA astronauts Josh Kassada, Frank Rubio and Nicole Mann are currently working on the ISS.
On December 15, 2022, it became known about the damage to the radiator of the cooling system on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. A leak has been reported from the cooling unit. Then the work of astronauts on spacewalks was suspended. As Yury Borisov, the head of Roskosmos, later clarified, the ship was depressurized due to a violation of the outer skin of the ship.
Now the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft is to dock with the ISS in the first ten days of March 2023 to deliver the crew to Earth. It was decided to return the ship with a faulty cooling system without a crew for safety reasons.
The Soyuz MS-22 itself will be undocked and landed one or two weeks after the arrival of the Soyuz MS-23 to the ISS. The landing of the ship is planned in a regular area on the territory of Kazakhstan.
