Two days after a rare last-second launch abort, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft blasted off Saturday on a flight to the International Space Station, carrying two short-duration crew members and a NASA astronaut bound for a six-month tour of duty.

Soyuz MS-25/71S commander Oleg Novitskiy, Belarus guest cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya and NASA veteran Tracy Dyson thundered away from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 8:36 a.m. EDT (5:36 p.m. local time) and slipped into orbit eight minutes and 45 seconds later.

Launch originally was planned for last Thursday, but the countdown was aborted inside 20 seconds to launch when computers detected low voltage readings in the Soyuz 2.1a rocket’s first stage electrical system.

It was the first ever such abort for a Soyuz rocket, and it took Russian engineers a day to review telemetry, pinpoint the problem and replace suspect batteries. Subsequent testing showed all systems were go for a second launch attempt Saturday.

As the Soyuz countdown ticked toward a late afternoon launch in Kazakhstan, a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship launched Thursday from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station caught up with the space station and moved in for docking at 7:19 a.m., bringing 6,200 pounds of science gear, spare parts and crew supplies to the lab complex, including fresh food and coffee kits.

The Soyuz is expected to catch up with the space station Monday, moving in for docking at a port on the station’s Earth-facing Prichal module at 11:09 a.m.

Standing by to welcome them aboard will be station commander Oleg Kononenko, cosmonauts Nikolai Chub and Alexander Grebenkin and NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara, Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps.

Vasilevskaya, an accomplished ballroom dancer and flight attendant with Belavia Airlines, is the first citizen of Belarus, a staunch ally of Russia, to fly in space since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

She was selected as a “spaceflight participant” in a nationwide competition and will conduct research for scientists in Belarus as part of a program known as the Belarusan Woman in Space.

Dyson is making her third spaceflight and her second aboard a Soyuz. Despite the political tension between the United States and Russia, the crew appears to get along well together.

“It’s actually been a real delight working with Marina,” Dyson said. “She’s got a fantastic attitude, and that goes a long way when you’re working together with emergency masks on your face in awful conditions trying to get through (emergency training) procedures. She’s been a real delight to work with.”

Kononenko, Chub and O’Hara were launched to the station last Sept. 15 aboard the Soyuz MS-24/70S spacecraft. Dominick, Barratt, Epps and Grebenkin were launched on March 3 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon ferry ship. Known as Crew 8, they replaced four other Crew Dragon fliers — Crew 7 — who returned to Earth March 12 after a short handover.

Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya plan to spend 12 days aboard the space station. O’Hara will replace Dyson for the trip home and the trio will return to Earth April 6 aboard the Soyuz MS-24/70S spacecraft that carried O’Hara, Kononenko and Chub into orbit last September.

Kononenko and Chub are midway through a planned yearlong stay aboard the station. If all goes well, they will return to Earth next September, along with Dyson, using the Soyuz MS-25/71S ferry ship delivered by Novitskiy’s crew.

With O’Hara’s return, five of the station’s seven full-time crew members will have been replaced, completing the latest crew rotation sequence.

Dyson first flew aboard the space shuttle Endeavour for a 13-day space station visit in 2007. Three years later, she blasted off aboard a Soyuz spacecraft as a long-duration station crew member, logging 176 days aboard the outpost between April and the end of September 2010.

During that flight, a now-famous picture of Dyson captured her gazing down at the blue-and-white Earth suspended in the darkness of space as seen from the lab’s multi-window Cupola compartment.

In an interview with CBS News, she said she now knows what to expect and “this time, I’m going to just see how I can help the others.”

“Part of the beauty of living on board is being part of a crew and a team and helping each other out,” she said. “So if I’ve got any spare time and the rest of my compadres are working, then I’m certainly going to try to lend a hand where I could. But if we’re all experiencing some free time, I’m really looking forward to that view out the window.

“I have such a great memory (of the experience) and that cupola shot certainly captures that, of viewing the Earth. And that just never gets old.”

The training it takes to get there is another matter.

“That’s the toughest part about what we do, the training, which requires us to be away from home for long periods of time,” she said. “When I did this on my first two flights, it was not as bad because it was really just me at home. I had a dog that others were willing to take care of. My husband was deployed on a ship.”

“But now it’s a little different, and I have a lot of support from my family, who’s reminded me over and over that I’m that I’m doing this for them as much as I’m doing it for myself.”

She will face a very busy six months in space.

Boeing’s Starliner ferry ship, a NASA-sponsored alternative to SpaceX’s already proven Crew Dragon, is expected to take off on its first piloted test flight in early May, carrying NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams to the space station on a shakedown flight.

If the flight goes well, the Starliner will be certified for use in future ISS crew rotation missions, alternating with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and providing NASA with redundancy when it comes to launching astronauts to and from the space station.

“Today, all of our Crew Dragons are launching on (SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets),” said space station Program Manager Dana Weigel. “If there was a problem with F9, for example, and we had to stand down for a while … if we had another vehicle we could continue flying.”

And that would help make sure one or more American astronauts is always on board the space station.

“So that’s the reason, when we talk about having multiple providers, why it’s so important for us to have that continual capability,” Weigel said.

In June, NASA plans three spacewalks, or EVAs, to carry out a variety of tasks, including work to prepare for the addition of a final set of roll-out solar array blankets.

Astronauts have not yet been assigned to the excursions, but Dyson is a spacewalk veteran and her experience may prompt NASA to send her back outside.

“We’ve got three EVAs planned for our increment, and I am one of the spacewalkers trained to do those EVAs,” she said. “We’ll see how they all work out and who goes out and who stays inside to get them all suited up.”

Update 8:21 a.m. ET: Roscosmos aborted the MS-25 launch attempt. A new launch date has not been set, but could be as soon as Saturday, March 23.

A Russian cosmonaut, an American astronaut and a Belarusian flight attendant turned spaceflight participant are preparing for a mission to the International Space Station. Their arrival at the orbiting outpost will mark the beginning of Expedition 71.

Liftoff onboard a Soyuz 2.1a rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome was set for 4:21 p.m. MSK (9:21 a.m. ET, 1321 UTC), however the launch scrubbed at T-20 seconds for a yet unknown reason. Oleg Novistky, Tracy Dyson and Marina Vasilevskaya make up the trio of the MS-25 mission.

If they are able to launch on Saturday, docking at the ISS will occur on Monday, March 25. This will be the fourth trip to the ISS for Novitsky, the third trip for Dyson and the first trip for Vasilevskaya.

Novitsky, 52, served as the commander for his three previous flights and will hold the position again on this mission. He graduated from the Air Force Academy in Russia with a speciality in military unit management and formations in 2006 and went on to graduate from the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration in 2015. He amassed more than 700 hours of flight time in his career.

He began his cosmonaut training in February 2007 and was named a test cosmonaut in July 2009.

Dr. Dyson grew up in California where she would go on to acquire a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from California State University (CSU) Fullerton in 1993 before earning her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California at Davis (UC Davis) in 1997. She was selected as an astronaut the following year, in 1998.

During a press conference leading up to the MS-25 mission, Dyson described her family’s reaction when she told them about her selection to the astronaut corps.

“My family was very excited that I applied, but we were all in shock that I was selected,” Dyson said.

In January, Dyson spoke with Spaceflight Now and Space.com in a joint interview about her last time on orbit, during which she kept a diary of her thoughts while on board station. She said one memory that stood out was her involvement in a trio of contingency spacewalks to remove and replace a pump module that failed.

“It came towards the end of my increment. And so, there was just a lot of reflection on how our crew really became cohesive during that period of time and my thoughts on that as well as how the whole team on the planet had to rally together,” Dyson said. “And that wasn’t just the team in the flight control room, or the systems engineers at Johnson Space Center, but everyone around the globe who was affected by the fact that we lost one of our two cooling pumps.”

In addition to that punctuation mark on her second trip to space, Dyson also holds the distinction of being the first astronaut to use American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate with the hard of hearing back on Earth. She said there aren’t plans for something similar to that this time around because she wanted to keep her schedule lighter.

“I really wanted to open myself up for whatever changes happen onboard because unexpected things happened before and so, I was careful not to sign myself up for too many things outside of what I know I would be doing on orbit,” Dyson said.

Dyson also had the distinction of helping develop the spacecraft communicator (CAPCOM) position for Boeing’s Starliner Mission Operations team. As luck would have it, she will be on orbit to receive the first crewed flight of Starliner, which is set to launch in early May.

“The two people who are in the capsule are longtime friends of mine. Suni (Williams) and I go way back to when we interviewed for the astronaut program and we became friends then all the way through being selected together,” Dyson said. “We have a lot of history, she and I, so I’m super excited that, at this point in our careers, we might actually get to be in space together! So, that’s kind of fun.”

Also looking forward to enjoying time on station is the third member of the MS-25 crew: Marina Vasilevskaya. She performed as a professional ballroom dancer for more than 15 years before pivoting careers and becoming a flight attendant.

According to Russian state media, TASS, Vasilevskaya was one of six finalists selected out of more than 3,000 applications submitted to Presidium of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus to be considered for spaceflight training.

She and Anastasia Lenkova received final approval in July 2023. Lenkonva was assigned to the backup crew for MS-25 along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivan Wagner and NASA astronaut Don Pettit.

Of the trio launching onboard the MS-25 mission, both Novitsky and Vasilevskaya will only spend about 12 days on board the ISS. They will return to Earth on the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft alongside NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara.

Vasilevskaya will make history as the first Belarusian woman to fly to space.

Mission Status Center

Russia’s Progress MS-23 cargo freighter launched Wednesday from Kazakhstan on a mission hauling more than 2.7 tons of fuel, food, experiments, and supplies to the International Space Station.

The Progress MS-23 supply ship lifted off at 8:56:07 a.m. EDT (1256:07 UTC) from the Site 31 launch complex at Baikonur, located in a remote part of Kazakhstan east of the Aral Sea. Russian ground teams at Baikonur rolled the Progress MS-23 spacecraft and its Soyuz rocket to the launch pad Sunday, then raised the launcher vertical for final mission preparations.

The Soyuz team loaded kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants into the three-stage rocket in the final hours before liftoff, timed for 5:56 p.m. local time at the spaceport in Central Asia.

After liftoff, the Soyuz 2.1a rocket headed northeast to line up with the space station’s flight path, then shed its four liquid-fueled boosters about two minutes into the flight. The aerodynamic shroud covering the Progress MS-23 spacecraft jettisoned moments later, followed by separation of the Soyuz core stage nearly five minutes after liftoff. A third stage engine ignited to finish the job of putting the cargo ship into orbit about nine minutes into the mission.

The Progress supply ship separated from the rocket and unfurled its solar panels and navigation antennas, then commenced a sequence of engine firings to adjust its orbit to match that of the space station. After a radar-guided rendezvous, the cargo freighter lined up with its docking port at the Poisk module on the Russian segment of the space station. Docking with the Poisk module occurred at 12:19 p.m. EDT (1619 UTC).

Liftoff of the Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome with Russia’s Progress MS-23 cargo freighter carrying nearly 5,500 pounds (about 2.5 metric tons) of supplies, experiments, fuel, and food to the seven-person crew on the International Space Station. https://t.co/Jhh06PRcJV pic.twitter.com/fCSQlQaslJ

— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) May 24, 2023

Russian cosmonauts on the station, part of the lab’s long-duration seven-person crew, will open hatches to begin unpacking cargo from the pressurized cabin of the Progress spacecraft. This is the 84th Progress cargo ship to launch to the space station, and the mission is designed Progress 84P by NASA.

There are currently 11 people on the space station, including the four-person private astronaut mission from Axiom Space that arrived Monday for an eight-day stay.

Russian managers met a few hours before launch to approve loading of kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants into the Soyuz rocket. The gantry arms at the launch pad retracted away from the rocket in the final hour of the countdown, and ground crews at Baikonur inserted the launch key into a control panel about six minutes before liftoff.

Propellant tanks on the launcher pressurized beginning about two-and-a-half minutes prior to liftoff, and engines on the core stage and strap-on boosters ignited and ramped up to full power to propel the Soyuz off the pad with more than 900,000 pounds of thrust.

Russia’s space agency said the Progress MS-22 cargo ship carries 5,492 pounds (2,491 kilograms) of supplies and fuel to the space station. Here’s a breakdown of the cargo manifest:

• 3,399 pounds (1,542 kilograms) of dry cargo

• 1,080 pounds (490 kilograms) of liquid propellant to refuel the Zvezda service module

• 926 pounds (420 kilograms) of fresh water

• 88 pounds (40 kilograms) of nitrogen to replenish the station’s atmosphere

The dry cargo includes food and clothing for the space station crew members, medical equipment, and experiments. The Russian supply ship could also reboost the orbital altitude of the station, and perform any required burns to steer the complex out of the path of space junk.

The equipment aboard the Progress MS-23 supply ship also includes a student-built nanosatellite from Bauman Moscow State Technical University. The small spacecraft, designed to test solar sail deployment technology, will be released into orbit by a cosmonaut during a future spacewalk outside the station.

The cargo mission also delivered a video system for observing Earth’s surface as part of Russia’s Uragan experiment, which tracks changes on the planet associated with natural and human-made disasters. The Progress spacecraft also carried a scientific glove box, and equipment for biomedical experiments.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft originally slated to bring home two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut parachuted to a landing in Kazakhstan Tuesday, returning to Earth without a crew due to concerns about overheating following a coolant leak while docked at the International Space Station last year.

The Soyuz MS-22 capsule landed in Kazakhstan at 7:45:58 a.m. EDT (1145:58 UTC) Tuesday, according Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency. The spacecraft apparently functioned as designed after worries Soyuz computers and others systems could overheat after the coolant leak in December crippled the ship’s thermal control system.

The landing occurred at 5:45 p.m. local time in Kazakhstan.

The spacecraft undocked from the space station’s Rassvet module at 5:57 a.m. EDT (0957 UTC) and backed away from the complex before firing thrusters for a braking maneuver to drop out of orbit and re-enter the atmosphere. Russian officials wanted to expedite the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft’s return to Earth and shorten the time from undocking until landing from the normal interval of several hours, a step to reduce the risk of overheating.

After the deorbit burn, the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft jettisoned its propulsion and habitation modules, which burned up during re-entry. The descent module, protected by a heat shield, plunged through the atmosphere and deployed an orange and white main parachute, then fired a set of braking rockets to cushion the capsule for touchdown.

Russian space agency officials said returning people to Earth in the damaged Soyuz spacecraft could have exacerbated concerns about overheating. A Russian ground controller told the crew on the space station Tuesday that temperatures “would have been probably 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) if there were people on-board.”

The spacecraft instead brought home 480 pounds (218 kilograms) of cargo, including scientific specimens and hardware for analysis, refurbishment, and reuse.

The Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft was supposed to bring home Russian commander Sergey Prokopyev, cosmonaut Dmitri Petelin, and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio to wrap up a planned six-month mission. The trio launched on Soyuz MS-22 last September.

But the spacecraft sprung a coolant leak Dec. 14, spewing frozen flakes of fluid from its radiator into space after what Russian officials initially announced was likely an impact from a tiny fragment of rock from deep space, called a micrometeoroid.

Russian space officials decided to move forward the launch of the next Soyuz spacecraft by a month to late February to replace the damaged Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. Russian engineers deemed the damaged Soyuz MS-22 vehicle safe enough to use, if needed, for an emergency evacuation of the space station, but not for a regularly-scheduled undocking and landing.

Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio had their six-month expedition on the space station extended to last more than a year. Instead of returning on the damaged Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft in late March, they will re-enter the atmosphere and land in Kazakhstan aboard the newly-arrived Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft in September, following the launch of the next Soyuz crew to take their place on the orbiting outpost.

Russian ground controllers detected a similar coolant leak from an unpiloted Progress cargo freighter docked at the station Feb. 11.

The coolant leaks on the Soyuz MS-22 and Progress MS-21 spacecraft were unlike anything that has happened in the more than 25-year history of the space station. Russian engineers are investigating a possible link in the cause of the two incidents, beyond the original explanation of a micrometeoroid impact for the Soyuz leak.

Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio remain aboard the space station with NASA crewmates Steve Bowen and Woody Hoburg, Emirati astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, who arrived at the complex earlier this month on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

A replacement for a damaged Russian Soyuz crew ferry spacecraft docked at the International Space Station Saturday night, two days after launching from Kazakhstan on a mission to give two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut a ride back to Earth later this year.

The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft linked up with the Poisk module, located on the space-facing side of the Russian Zvezda service module, at 7:58 p.m. EST Saturday (0058 GMT Sunday) to close out a radar-guided automated rendezvous and docking.

The human-rated crew capsule flew to the station without anyone on-board, an unusual step for Russia’s space program, to replace a damaged Soyuz spacecraft that was supposed to bring home Russian commander Sergey Prokopyev, cosmonaut Dmitri Petelin, and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio next month.

But the Soyuz that launched Prokopyev’s crew in September sprung a coolant leak Dec. 14, spewing frozen flakes of fluid from its radiator into space after what Russian officials determined was likely an impact from a tiny fragment of rock from deep space, called a micrometeoroid.

Russian space officials decided to move forward the launch of the next Soyuz spacecraft by a month to late February to replace the damaged Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. Russian engineers deemed the damaged Soyuz MS-22 vehicle safe enough to use, if needed, for an emergency evacuation of the space station, but not for a regularly-scheduled undocking and landing. Officials were concerned about overheating of avionics and other internal components of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, with its disabled cooling system.

Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio had their six-month expedition on the space station extended to last more than a year. Instead of returning on the damaged Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft in late March, they will re-enter the atmosphere and land in Kazakhstan aboard the newly-arrived Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft in September, following the launch of the next Soyuz crew to take their place on the orbiting outpost.

With the docking of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft Saturday night, the station crew members planned to transfer custom-fitted seat liners from the damaged Soyuz and SpaceX’s Dragon Endurance crew ferry ships docked at other ports on the station. Since the coolant leak on Soyuz MS-22 and before the arrival of Soyuz MS-23, Rubio would have flown back to Earth with four other astronauts on the SpaceX crew capsule, if the station crew needed to abandon the station in the event of an emergency.

The damaged Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft will depart the station and head for a parachute-assisted landing on the Kazakh steppe next month without anyone on-board.

Russian ground controllers detected a similar coolant leak from an unpiloted Progress cargo freighter docked at the station Feb. 11.

The coolant leaks on the Soyuz MS-22 and Progress MS-21 spacecraft were unlike anything that has happened in the more than 25-year history of the space station. After the leak on the Progress cargo freighter earlier his month, it’s not clear if Roscosmos officials still believe the micrometeoroid explanation for the Soyuz MS-22 leak.

Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, posted an update on its Telegram channel Tuesday, claiming the preliminary conclusion of the investigation into the damage to the Progress MS-21 supply ship indicated it was caused by an “external influence,” and not a manufacturing defect.

Dana Weigel, NASA’s deputy program manager for the ISS, said Tuesday that the U.S. space agency is also analyzing data to find the cause of the leaks.

She told reporters she did not interpret the Russian space agency’s statement about an “external influence” on Progress MS-21 as specifically pointing to micrometeoroid damage.

“I actually don’t interpret that was micrometeoroid damage over the spacecraft,” Weigel said, referring to the Roscosmos statement on Progress MS-21. “I think what they’re really trying to understand is are there any signs or signatures that somewhere along the spacecraft’s journey, whether it’s launch or launch vehicle separation, there’s some other external influence or damage that could have occurred that could have been a factor there.”

The docking of Soyuz MS-23 at the station Saturday night clears the way for launch of another SpaceX crew mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Monday. A four-man crew commanded by NASA astronaut Stephen Bowen will head to the space station for a six-month expedition, replacing an outgoing team of four astronauts scheduled to return to Earth in early March on a different SpaceX crew capsule.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

A Russian Soyuz crew ferry ship blasted off from Kazakhstan Thursday, kicking off an unpiloted but critical flight to the International Space Station to replace a damaged Soyuz and provide an eventual ride home for three of the lab’s crew members.

Lighting up the pre-dawn sky, the Soyuz 2.1a booster carrying the Soyuz MS-23/69S crew ship shot away from the sprawling Baikonur Cosmodrome at 7:24 p.m. EST (5:24 a.m. local time Friday), kicking off a 9-minute climb to space.

If all goes well, the Soyuz, loaded with equipment and supplies in place of a crew, will carry out an automated rendezvous with the space station, docking at the Russian Poisk module at 8:01 a.m. Saturday.

The spacecraft originally was scheduled for launch next month to ferry two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut to the lab complex to replace another Soyuz that was expected to carry three other station fliers — Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio — back to Earth to wrap up a six-month mission.

But on December 14, their Soyuz was hit by a presumed micrometeoroid that ruptured a coolant line. Russian engineers called off the planned return to Earth after concluding the lost coolant could lead to higher-than-normal, possibly unsafe internal temperatures.

Instead, managers ordered engineers to speed up processing for the Soyuz MS-23 vehicle and, after a delay caused by additional problems with a Progress cargo ship, moved launch to Thursday.

The original MS-23 crew — Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and NASA astronaut Laral O’Hara — now plan to fly in September aboard the next Soyuz in the sequence, replacing Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio.

Liftoff of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, heading for the International Space Station to replace a disabled Soyuz crew ferry ship and provide a ride home for a three-man crew later this year. https://t.co/D0Ym3hg4P8 pic.twitter.com/8pjjrjqwCp

— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) February 24, 2023

Prokopyev and company originally planned to spend six months in space as part of a normal crew rotation. But the damage to their ship and the decision to replace it means they’ll now have to stay in space for a full year.

In any case, the Soyuz MS-23 launching Thursday was critical to providing the trio with a safe ride home at the end of their extended mission as well as serving as the crew’s lifeboat in case of an emergency that might require an immediate evacuation of the space station.

Since the MS-22 vehicle was damaged in December, NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos have been forced to rely on a less-than optimal “plan B.”

In case of an emergency before the replacement Soyuz arrives, Rubio would squeeze into a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and join that ship’s four crew members for a quick descent to Earth.

Prokopyev and Petelin would attempt re-entry in the damaged Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. With just two crew members aboard, not as much cooling would be required and Russian engineers are confident the ship could carry out a safe re-entry.

But assuming Thursday’s launch and rendezvous go well, the station will again have two healthy crew lifeboats for use as needed.

Against that backdrop, NASA and SpaceX are gearing up to launch a Crew Dragon spacecraft to the station early Monday carrying Crew-6 astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, along with cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev and Emerati astronaut Sultan Alneyadi.

Crew-6 will replace four other station crew members — Nicole Mann, Josh Cassada, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Anna Kikina — who plan to return to Earth around March 6 aboard their Crew-5 Dragon.

Russia’s space agency said Tuesday that preliminary data suggest a coolant leak on a Progress cargo freighter docked at the International Space Station earlier this month was caused by “external influences” — possibly something that occurred during its launch last year, according to a senior NASA space station manager.

It was the second time in two months that a Russian spacecraft docked at the space station suddenly leaked coolant fluid, following the loss of coolant from a Soyuz crew ferry spacecraft in December. The two leaks were similar, both originating from each spacecraft’s thermal control system, spewing a cloud of frozen coolant into space.

The Progress MS-21 cargo ship undocked from the space station Friday, as scheduled, six days after Russian ground controllers first detected a loss of pressure in the spacecraft’s cooling system. Cameras operated by Russian cosmonauts inside the station and remote controlled cameras outside the complex captured high-resolution images of the Progress MS-21 spacecraft, revealing a 12-millimeter hole where the coolant fluid flowed out of the cooling system Feb. 11.

The Progress MS-21 completed a de-orbit burn Saturday and descended back into the atmosphere over the remote South Pacific Ocean, burning up and discarding several tons of trash and other no-longer-needed items from the space station.

Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, posted an update on its Telegram channel Tuesday, claiming the preliminary conclusion of the investigation into the damage to the Progress MS-21 supply ship indicated it was caused by an “external influence,” and not a manufacturing defect.

The coolant leaks on the Progress MS-21 cargo spacecraft Feb. 11 and the Soyuz MS-22 crew capsule Dec. 14 were unlike anything that has happened in the more than 25-year history of the space station. Russian space agency managers decided to launch a fresh Soyuz spacecraft to replace the damaged Soyuz MS-22 vehicle after its coolant leak.

“According to preliminary data from RSC Energia (prime contractor for the Soyuz and Progress spacecraft), the Progress MS-21, like the Soyuz MS-22 before, was exposed to external influences,” Roscosmos said. “Such conclusions are made on the basis of photographs that show changes on the outer surface of the ship, including on the radiator of the instrument-aggregate compartment and solar panels.”

Roscosmos said managers cleared the new Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft, a replacement for the damaged Soyuz, for launch Thursday at 7:24 p.m. EST (0024 GMT Friday) on a Soyuz-2.1a rocket.

Ground teams at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan rolled the new Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft and its Soyuz booster to their launch pad Tuesday. The Soyuz MS-23 capsule, originally slated to launch a crew of three in March, will fly to the station.a few weeks earlier than originally planned without any people on-board.

The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft is scheduled to autonomously dock at the Poisk module on the Russian segment of the space station at 8:01 p.m. EST Saturday (0101 GMT Sunday). Assuming the new Soyuz completes its automated docking as planned, the damaged Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft will depart the complex next month to head for a parachute-assisted landing in Kazakhstan.

Russian commander Sergey Prokopyev, cosmonaut Dmitri Petelin, and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio will return to Earth on Soyuz MS-23 after the launch of Soyuz MS-24 with their replacement crew in September. Their expedition was extended by six months after Russian space officials shuffled the schedule of missions to the space station in the wake of the Soyuz coolant leak.

Without a functioning internal cooling system, Russian engineers are concerned about overheating of computers and other internal components on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft during the flight from the space station back to Earth. Engineers deemed the damaged Soyuz safe enough to use for an emergency evacuation of the space station, but extended the stay of its three-man crew at the complex from March until September, when they will ride the new Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft back to Earth.

Russian officials initially blamed the Soyuz MS-22 coolant leak on a likely impact from a tiny piece of rock from deep space, called a micrometeoroid. After the leak on the Progress cargo freighter earlier his month, it’s not clear if Roscosmos officials still believe in the micrometeoroid explanation for the Soyuz MS-22 leak.

Dana Weigel, NASA’s deputy program manager for the ISS, said Tuesday that the U.S. space agency is also analyzing data to find the cause of the leaks.

She told reporters she did not interpret the Russian space agency’s statement about an “external influence” on Progress MS-21 as specifically pointing to micrometeoroid damage.

“I actually don’t interpret that was micrometeoroid damage over the spacecraft,” Weigel said, referring to the Roscosmos statement on Progress MS-21. “I think what they’re really trying to understand is are there any signs or signatures that somewhere along the spacecraft’s journey, whether it’s launch or launch vehicle separation, there’s some other external influence or damage that could have occurred that could have been a factor there.”

The Progress MS-21 cargo ship launched in October, carrying fuel, food and supplies to the space station. The coolant leak Feb. 11 occurred, presumably in a coincidence, shortly after docking of the new Progress MS-22 supply ship.

In the next phase of the investigation, Russia’s space agency plans ground experiments to simulate the damage observed on the Soyuz MS-22 and Progress MS-21 vehicles.

The launch and docking of the new Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft will occur as NASA and SpaceX gear up for launch of a four-man crew from Kennedy Space Center in Florida early Monday. The multinational Crew-6 mission, consisting of crew members from the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia, will launch on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft atop a Falcon 9 rocket, kicking off a six-month mission on the International Space Station.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

Launch of a Russian Soyuz crew capsule to replace a damaged ferry ship docked at the International Space Station is being delayed in the wake of a second incident that resulted in similar damage to a Progress cargo ship, a senior official said Monday.

In both cases, the spacecraft suffered a total loss of coolant, raising the prospect of high internal temperatures that could damage flight computers or other sensitive systems after undocking. The Soyuz was damaged by a presumed micrometeoroid impact. The cause of the Progress damage is not yet known.

The odds of separate impact events two months apart that could damage the same system on two different spacecraft are improbable, but it would seem just as unlikely that two different issues, one of them impact related and the other not, could affect the same systems.

In any case, Yuri Borisov, head of the Russian federal space agency Roscosmos, said Monday launch of the replacement Soyuz, which had been planned for February 19, was being delayed to March pending additional analysis.

NASA and SpaceX plan to launch a Crew Dragon capsule carrying a crew of four — two astronauts, a Russian cosmonaut and a United Arab Emirates astronaut — on February 26. They will replace four other Crew Dragon astronauts who plan to return to Earth on March 4. Those flights remain on schedule.

The Soyuz MS-22 crew — Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio — was launched to the space station last September. They had planned to return to Earth next month to wrap up their own six-month stay in space.

But on December 14, a presumed micrometeoroid punctured the hull of the Soyuz, apparently rupturing a coolant line. Roscosmos released photographs of the impact site Monday, showing what appears to be a small puncture surrounded by discoloration from escaping coolant.

Russian engineers concluded the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft could not safely carry its three crew members home and opted to launch the next Soyuz in the sequence, MS-23, without a crew on board. Prokopyev and his crewmates will return to Earth in September aboard the new spacecraft.

But last Saturday, the Progress cargo ship suddenly lost its coolant in an apparently unrelated incident. Unlike the damaged Soyuz, whatever caused the Progress issue occurred on the side of the vehicle that’s not visible to space station cameras. Engineers do not yet know if another impact occurred are whether a component failed.

“A commission is working on the Progress … case,” Borisov said in translated remarks on Telegram. “Until the cause of the emergency situation is determined, a decision was made to postpone the launch of the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft in unmanned mode until March 2023.

“We emphasize that nothing threatens the life and health of the crew,” the post concluded.