The return of the International Space Station crew has been delayed due to a leak in a space capsule

A senior Russian official in the space sector in Moscow suggested today, Wednesday, that the return of two Russian and one American cosmonauts from the International Space Station to Earth would be delayed more than planned due to a leak in the landing capsule.

Yury Borisov, head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, said via the Telegram application that the Russian astronauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petilin, and Frank Rubio, an astronaut of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), will land on Earth aboard the “Soyuz MS-23” spare spacecraft instead. From “Soyuz MS-22” that carried them to the International Space Station last September.

It was not clear at first when that would happen. The crew was originally scheduled to return in March.

And the Russian Space Agency announced that the unmanned Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft must first return to Earth. Then “Soyuz MS-23” will be launched to the International Space Station from the Bakinur Space Center in Kazakhstan, without a crew on board also on the journey heading to the International Space Station.

NASA stated that it would comment on the leak and the new plans later in the day.

Russian space experts suspect that the cause of the leak is a small meteorite hitting the capsule.

Borisov explained that this had been confirmed, adding that the outer casing of the capsule and the refrigeration unit were damaged.