The POT is adapting a Crew Dragon capsule to rescue astronauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin (Roscosmos) and Frank Rubio (POT)stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) since December 15.
As he recalls a report published on the website of The Spanish, space travelers were trapped after a coolant leak on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, docked on the ISS. This forced the Russian space agency to prepare the launch of a rescue Soyuzbut it also led NASA to look for a rescue alternative.
The US space agency’s plan is to moving the seat of the Soyuz M-22 to the Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft from the Crew-5 missionin case there is any accident or problem before the arrival of the new Soyuz MS-23.
In this regard, Roscosmos has assured that, ultimately, they could use the damaged Soyuz MS-22, but only by Petelin and Prokopyev. In the worst case, the Russian cosmonauts could return on the damaged Soyuz and Rubio on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon.
Who are the stranded astronauts
Sergey Prokopyev He is 46 years old and began training as a cosmonaut in February 2011. He achieved the rank of ‘test cosmonaut’ a year later.
Roscosmos then continued to train him until June 2015 when he was assigned to a backup crew. The Sverdlovsk-born is a Russian military aviation pilot and economist with the rank of major.
For his part, Dmitry Petelin, the other Russian from the Soyuz mission, was born on July 10, 1983 in Kostanay, in Kazakhstan. He was part of the 2012 selection group, has two children and is married. He is an aeronautical engineer.
Finally, it’s Frank Rubioof Salvadoran origin, a flight surgeon selected by NASA in 2017. He is a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army and his mission and research is based on the creation of human organs in space.
Rubio is on the ISS studying the flammability of materials in microgravity, demonstrating technology for small robotic repair satellites, and capturing images of Earth requested by students. But the most important mission of him is the investigation of the creation of organs outside the planet.
