After the Soyuz capsule carrying the three crew members began to leak, Russia’s space agency says it is considering sending an empty spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) to bring them back sooner than expected.
It is unknown how the spacecraft’s external radiator sustained a microscopic rupture, informed Roscosmos and NASA.
They have ruled out a meteor collision.
Two cosmonauts were getting ready for a normal spacewalk when the leak first appeared.
The specifics of how the three crew members will be returned to Earth are still up for debate.
Sending another Soyuz spacecraft to retrieve them is the most likely course of action.
Sending them home in the leaky capsule without the majority of its coolant, which controls temperatures within the crew compartment of the spaceship, is a less likely possibility.
Dmitry Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev, two Russian cosmonauts, and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio travelled to the station on the MS-22 spacecraft in September.
But early this month, it started blasting coolant into space, and Nasa TV got some amazing shots of white particles shooting out of the capsule like snowflakes.
The most likely period to launch another Soyuz is in late February, according to Joel Montalbano, manager of NASA’s ISS programme. In March, the crew was supposed to return.
No one on the crew is in danger, informed NASA.
According to Mr. Montalbano, the capsule is currently being ventilated with air flow permitted to the space station through an open hatch.
Launched in 1998, the ISS is situated 400 kilometres away from the planet.
At the station, cosmonauts conduct tests and research that will benefit upcoming space flights.