Russia said on Wednesday it would launch another Soyuz spacecraft next month to bring home two of its own cosmonauts and a US astronaut from the International Space Station after their original capsule was struck by a micrometeoroid and started leaking.
The last month’s leak came from a tiny puncture — less than 1 millimetre wide — on the external cooling system of the Soyuz MS-22 capsule, one of two return capsules docked to the ISS that can bring crew members home.
“Having analysed the condition of the spacecraft, thermal calculations and technical documentation, it has been concluded that the MS-22 must be landed without a crew on board,” said Yuri Borisov, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
Russia said a new capsule, Soyuz MS-23, would be sent up on 20 February from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to replace the damaged Soyuz MS-22, which will be returned to Earth empty. The new capsule will have to fly to the ISS in autopilot mode, too.
The original plan was to launch the MS-23 in March with two Russians and one American, replacing the three already up there. This new crew will now have to wait until late summer or fall to fly when another capsule is ready for them.
The crew is ‘safe on board the space station’, NASA says
Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and US astronaut Francisco Rubio had been due to end their mission in March but will now extend it by a few more months and return aboard the MS-23.
“They are ready to go with whatever decision we give them,” Joel Montalbano, NASA’s ISS program manager, told a news conference. “I may have to fly some more ice cream to reward them,” he added.
If there is an emergency in the meantime, Roscosmos said it would look at whether the MS-22 spacecraft can be used to rescue the crew. In this scenario, temperatures in the capsule could reach unhealthy levels of 30-40 degrees Celsius.
“In case of an emergency, when the crew will have a real threat to life on the station, then probably the danger of staying on the station can be higher than going down in an unhealthy Soyuz,” Sergei Krikalev, Russia’s chief of crewed space programs, said.
NASA took part in all the discussions and agreed with the plan.
“Right now, the crew is safe on board the space station,” said NASA’s space station program manager Joel Montalbano. “There’s no immediate need for the crew to come home today.”
There are a total of seven space station residents, and the crew can not rely on the MS-22 if they encounter another emergency, like a fire or decompression.
Besides Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio, the space station is home to NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Russia’s Anna Kikina and Japan’s Koichi Wakata, who rode up on a SpaceX capsule last October.
NASA said it was looking at the possibility of adding extra crew to the capsule — the only other “lifeboat” vehicle currently docked at the station.
‘We are prepared for this situation’, Roscosmos says
The incident has disrupted Russia’s ISS activities, forcing its cosmonauts to call off spacewalks as officials focused on the leaky capsule.
Both NASA and Roscosmos believe the leak was caused by a micrometeoroid — a small particle of space rock — hitting the capsule at high velocity.
“Space is not a safe place, and not a safe environment. We have meteorites, we have a vacuum and we have a high temperature and we have complicated hardware that can fail,” Krikalev said.
“Now we are facing one of the scenarios … we are prepared for this situation.”
The issue comes during the 11th month of Russia’s war against Ukraine, which sparked the biggest crisis in relations between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Moscow has used its space program since the February invasion to show support for its troops.
The Soyuz rocket launched in March 2022 was decked out with a large letter “Z”, known as the main symbol of Russia’s aggression against its neighbour.
In early July of 2022, cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov shared photos of themselves aboard the ISS holding the flags of the so-called “people’s republics” of Donetsk Luhansk, two territories in Ukraine’s Donbas that Russia has since unilaterally annexed despite protests by the international community.
On 21 December, Roscosmos’ former director and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Rogozin, was critically wounded while celebrating his birthday in Moscow-occupied Donetsk.
Rogozin, who was replaced at the helm of Russia’s national space agency on 16 July 2022, is known as one of the most fervent supporters of the war in Ukraine.
The new chief, Yuri Borisov, previously said that Russia plans to pull out of the ISS programme in 2024 and build its own space station down the line.
Neither Roscosmos nor NASA made any comments regarding the ongoing tensions between Moscow and Washington in the context of the Soyuz crisis.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
