NASA is chatting with SpaceX about the opportunity of utilizing a Crew Dragon spacecraft to deliver residence three Worldwide Area Station (ISS) astronauts who at the moment don’t have any journey again to Earth.
The Soyuz spacecraft that transported American Frank Rubio, and Russians Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, to the ISS in September suffered a critical leak a few weeks in the past that noticed coolant spraying out from the Russian capsule.
NASA’s counterpart, Roscosmos, remains to be investigating the trigger and extent of the harm because it considers find out how to get the three crewmembers residence on or earlier than their scheduled departure date in March.
If the Soyuz passes security checks, it may nonetheless be used to deliver the trio residence. Alternatively, Roscosmos could possibly ship an empty Soyuz to the ISS to gather them.
But when Roscosmos finds its personal options problematic, NASA may step in.
On Thursday it emerged that the U.S. house company has been consulting SpaceX on the thought of utilizing one in every of its Crew Dragon spacecraft to move Rubio, Prokopyev, and Petelin again to Earth.
“We’ve requested SpaceX a couple of questions on their functionality to return extra crew members on Dragon if essential, however that’s not our prime focus right now,” NASA spokeswoman Sandra Jones instructed Reuters.
It’s not clear if NASA’s inquiry focuses on becoming extra seats to the Crew Dragon at the moment docked on the ISS; the spacecraft introduced 4 Crew-5 astronauts to the orbital outpost in October and isn’t resulting from return till March. It’s additionally doable NASA is taken with getting SpaceX to ship an empty Crew Dragon to the ISS to rescue the three crewmembers.
Roscosmos chief Yury Borisov mentioned final week that the company has “no fears” concerning the security of the crew.
Nevertheless, each NASA and Roscosmos will need to resolve the problem as quickly as doable, because the ISS at the moment has just one emergency escape route — the docked Crew Dragon — ought to the station face a scenario through which all seven crewmembers need to evacuate.
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