Russia to launch rescue vessel to International Space Station to bring home 3 crew members stuck in orbit

Russia will launch a rescue vessel to the International Space Station next month, February, to bring home three crew members who are in effect stuck in orbit after their original capsule was hit by a meteoroid.

The docked Soyuz MS-22 sprang a major leak last month, spraying radiator coolant into space and prompting a pair of cosmonauts to abort a planned spacewalk. The Russian space agency, Roscosmos said that the strike caused no immediate threat to the crew of the space station.

The Roscosmos said, it has decided to bring forward a planned March launch of the Soyuz MS-23 to 20 February so it can be used to transport the Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and the US astronaut Francisco Rubio back to Earth.

Space has remained a rare area in which Moscow and Washington have continued cooperation despite the Russian special military operations in Ukraine and consequent Western sanctions on Russia.