Leaky Soyuz capsule to return to Earth on Tuesday. Here's where to watch it depart the ISS

The Soyuz capsule which was in a space accident resulting in all its coolant leaking, will depart the International Space Station dock early on March 28. The Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft will remove itself from its docking port at at 5:57 am EDT (3:27 pm IST) and NASA will be streaming it LIVE via NASA TV. It is scheduled to land Kazakhstan at 7:45 am EDT (5:15 pm IST).

It will be returning without any crew on board since the coolant leak left it unfit for humans to travel back in it comfortably as the temperature inside the capsule can go up to 40 degree Celsius, NASA said.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, launched the MS-22 Soyuz spacecraft in September 2022. It ferried Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio to the ISS on a six-month mission. However, in December 2022, a leak was reported in the capsule. Roscosmos said the coolant leak into space happened because of a micrometeoroid strike. Dramatic NASA TV images showed white particles that looked like snowflakes streaming out of the rear of the vessel for hours.

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Tiny micrometeoroids are basically space rocks, mostly as small as a grain of sand. They are a common part of the space environment and are not known to cause heavy damage to the ISS and other spacecraft that are protected by advanced shielding.

The accident left the space crew without any lifeboat on the mission. Their mission was due to end in March, but the coolant leak meant that they were stuck at the ISS for longer. Later it was announced that another capsule will be sent to the ISS to bring back the stranded crew. Known as the Lifeboat mission, on February 23, an empty Soyuz MS-23 crew capsule was launched and will bring back the three astronauts in September later this year. The cosmonauts will be staying aboard the ISS till September in order to avoid a staffing void.

(With inputs from agencies)

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