Russia will abandon the Soyuz spacecraft on the space station and will launch a new spacecraft to take the astronauts home

The Soyuz spacecraft MS-22 on the International Space Station was originally scheduled to return three astronauts to the ground in February this year after a ruptured external radiator coolant line late last year. Now that the spacecraft is malfunctioning, how can the astronauts go home? NASA and Russia’s Roscosmos announced on Wednesday that the MS-22 spacecraft will be abandoned and will be replaced by a new Soyuz spacecraft, MS-23, next month. MS-22 will likely return to the surface autonomously in March. Russian officials believe that the MS-22 spacecraft can still be used in an emergency, but because of a coolant failure, the interior of the spacecraft may overheat during the return, which may destroy the flight computer and put the astronauts at risk.

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