Soyuz MS-22
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Soyuz MS-22 was a Russian
Soyuz Soyuz is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text Союз (Russian language, Russian and Ukrainian language, Ukrainian, 'Union'). It can refer to any union, such as a trade union (''profsoyuz'') or the Soviet Union, Union of Soviet Socialist Republi ...
spaceflight to the
International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...
with a crew of three launched from
Baikonur Cosmodrome The Baikonur Cosmodrome is a spaceport operated by Russia within Kazakhstan. Located in the Kazakh city of Baikonur, it is the largest operational space launch facility in terms of area. All Russian Human spaceflight, crewed spaceflights are l ...
on 21 September 2022. The launch, previously planned for 13 September 2022, was subsequently delayed to 21 September 2022 for a mission length of 188 days.


Crew

The original three-Russian member crew was named in May 2021. American astronaut Francisco Rubio replaced Anna Kikina as a part of the Soyuz-
Dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...
crew swap system of keeping at least one NASA astronaut and one Roscosmos cosmonaut on each of the crew rotation missions. This allows continuous space station occupation by US and Russia and keep backup crew scenarios to prevent vehicle either vehicle grounding like
Soyuz MS-10 Soyuz MS-10 was a crewed Soyuz MS spaceflight that aborted shortly after launch on 11 October 2018 due to a failure of the Soyuz-FG launch vehicle boosters. MS-10 was the 139th flight of a Soyuz spacecraft. It was intended to transport two mem ...
launch failure or to compensate for delays in launch of crew rotation missions of either vehicles like
SpaceX Crew-3 SpaceX Crew-3 was the SpaceX Dragon 2, Crew Dragon's third NASA Commercial Crew Program, Commercial Crew operational flight, and its fifth overall crewed orbital flight. The mission successfully launched on 11 November 2021 at 02:03:31 Coordina ...
, that was delayed due to unfavorable launch weather conditions.


Backup crew


Spacecraft

The spacecraft is named in honor of Russian scientist
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (; rus, Константин Эдуардович Циолковский, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin ɪdʊˈardəvʲɪtɕ tsɨɐlˈkofskʲɪj, a=Ru-Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.oga; – 19 September 1935) was a Russi ...
, who is today considered one of the fathers of modern rocketry and astronautics. Tsiolkovsky's 165th birthday fell on 17 September, a few days before the launch of MS-22.


Cooling loop accident

On 15 December 2022 at 12:45 UTC, a "visible stream of flakes" was observed emanating from the Soyuz spacecraft, concurrent with a loss of pressure in the external radiator cooling loop. A scheduled spacewalk for Petelin and Prokopyev was cancelled while the incident was evaluated. The leak in the radiator occurred due to a micro-meteorite impact. The damage left a hole into the external cooling radiator on the service module. Two working groups were formed to find the cause of the incident, analyze the technical condition of the ship and develop recommendations for further actions for ground specialists and the cosmonauts. According to tests conducted on the ship's systems, the temperature in the orbital and descent modules in the first days after the incident reached , and in the service module , but by January 2023, the temperature in the whole ship had stabilized at about 30 °C. In December 2022, the outer surface of Soyuz MS-22 was examined using the cameras of the
European Robotic Arm The European Robotic Arm (ERA) is a robotic arm that is attached to the Russian Orbital Segment (ROS) of the International Space Station. Launched to the ISS in July 2021; it is the first robotic arm that is able to work on the Russian Segment ...
and
Canadarm2 The Mobile Servicing System (MSS) is a robotic system on board the International Space Station (ISS). Launched to the ISS in 2001, it plays a key role in station assembly and maintenance; it moves equipment and supplies around the station, suppo ...
. The analysis of the data received on Earth allowed engineers to detect a possible place of damage on the surface of the service module. In February 2023, days before undocking, Progress MS-21 encountered a similar problem with coolant pressure leak.


Undocking and Return

As Soyuz MS-22 was unable to perform crew return, it returned uncrewed (like Soyuz 32). MS-23 was launched uncrewed on 24 February 2023 to function as a replacement, bringing back the crew in September 2023 (similar to Soyuz 34). At that point, the crew spent a year in space. The original crew mission of MS-23 was delayed and reassigned to the MS-24 mission. Thus, some dry cargo and equipment weighing was brought back on the uncrewed return of Soyuz MS-22. Temperatures probably reached on landing, more favourable than the worst emergency crewed landing scenario studied, as reported by the mission control team. More details were published later after analysis. Until the replacement MS-23 docked to ISS, NASA and Roscosmos considered sending the MS-22 crew home with SpaceX Crew-5 in case of emergency. This is due to the fact that
SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...
originally designed the
Crew Dragon Dragon 2 is a class of partially reusable spacecraft developed, manufactured, and operated by the American space company SpaceX for flights to the International Space Station (ISS) and private spaceflight missions. The spacecraft, which consi ...
to host a crew of seven. Accordingly, the International Space Station mission management team decided to move NASA astronaut Francisco Rubio's Soyuz seat liner from the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft to Crew Dragon Endurance in order to provide lifeboat capabilities for Rubio. The seat liner was moved on 17 January 2023, with installation and configuration continuing through most of the following day. Seat liner swapping is not new between two Soyuz capsules, but was performed for the first time from Soyuz to Crew Dragon. The change allowed for increased crew protection by reducing the heat load inside the MS-22 spacecraft for cosmonauts Prokopyev and Petelin in the event of an emergency return to Earth. Alongside SpaceX Crew-6 space capsule is designed to bring back crew serving as a emergency evacuation after Crew-5. MS-23 arrived and docked to the ISS on 26 February 2023. After the spacecraft docked, the seat liners for Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin were moved from MS-22 to MS-23 on 2 March ahead of their return in the Soyuz. Rubio's seat liner was transferred from Crew Dragon to the new Soyuz on 6 March.


References

{{Orbital launches in 2022 Crewed Soyuz missions Spacecraft launched in 2022 2022 in Russia