A 17-metre-long Canadian-made robotic arm on the International Space Station will inspect a docked Soyuz spacecraft after a leak was noticed just before a spacewalk last week, Russia’s state space corporation said on Sunday.
After the spacewalk was called off on Thursday, Roscosmos said there had been damage to the outer skin of an instrument assembly compartment of the Soyuz MS-22 capsule. It said there was a coolant leak.
Roscosmos said cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin and Anna Kikina were enjoying a day of rest on the Space Station and planned to watch the final of the World Cup.
“The Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft will be inspected with cameras of the SSRMS, the Space Station Remote Manipulator System,” Roskosmos said in a statement. “The results will be transmitted to Earth on Monday.”
Commonly known as Canadarm2, the SSRMS performs maintenance, moves supplies and grapples arriving spacecraft.
“The temperature in the Soyuz MS-22 manned spacecraft was reduced due to the actions of specialists from the Mission Control Centre near Moscow, remaining within the specified limits,” it said.
Preparations are underway for the launch of the Soyuz MS-23 from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, and Russia’s space agency said that launch could be accelerated if needed.
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield reacts to news of the unexplained leak from the docked Soyuz spacecraft, which led to the cancellation of a routine Russian ISS spacewalk.