Soyuz module on International Space Station is leaking something
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Mission Controllers have only a few options here:
1. If they determine what the problem is and that the leak will not affect Soyuz's ability to return safely, then they can stay on board and continue as normal. This is unlikely; Spacecraft are not supposed to leak 'substances' like this. They also do not carry 'substances' that are not critical to the mission.
2. If they determine that the leak is slow enough to safely allow a reentry attempt, I expect them to pack up the 3 cosmonauts who are assigned to that soyuz and send em home pronto while that window is open.
3. If this soyuz is now toast and the Russians have a spare somewhere on the ground, they will likely have to fill it with supplies and launch it, fast, unmanned to the station. We are in a dangerous, unprecedented time where there are astronauts on station with no ride home. Every emergency is now life-threatening until they can get another soyuz up there.
In an emergency there is one other option that they might consider; Dragon is human rated in theory for up to 7 people. That's what the original design was for. However, NASA only fits theirs out for 4 astronauts. Presumably, they could, in an emergency be used to carry the 3 soyuz refugees. Perhaps they would need to bring extra life support equipment and dump cargo to lose some weight. But it could be made to work. At a stretch, an unmanned cargo-dragon could even be used if appropriate life-support equipment could be employed. Such as putting the passengers in an EVA suit for the ride home.
Either way, it's thinking-cap time for the people at NASA and Roscosmos. Good luck!
I'll be interested to see if they make any changes to station procedures or the vehicle complement they choose to keep on orbit.
I don't think NASA would have a problem having fewer seats available for egress than crew for a short time as long as they were moving to rectify it.
Additionally depending on damage Soyuz may be on a clock to leave no matter what (with or without crew) to prevent it from being stuck to ISS.
Big question is what caused the damage and thus what risk there is to re-entry. Lots of tough risk trades to make.
Root cause and the next steps are going to be very interesting.
Luckily it seems everyone is safe for the time being.
I believe it was a myth. IIRC, one of the unusual things about the final Hubble servicing mission was said to be the sight of two space shuttles ready to go at the same time (one for the mission and a second one to be used as a rescue ship if necessary), implying that this wasn't done often (if at all) previously.
As you note the Hubble mission (STS-125 with Atlantis) wouldn't have that option available due to its orbit, so NASA had the shuttle Endeavour ready to fly as STS-400 as a contingency.
[1] The plan would have been that crew stranded on the ISS would be picked up by a later shuttle, so NASA was obviously comfortable with the contingency of leaving a crew without transport off for a period of time during an emergency. These were designated STS-3xx missions and would have launched within 40 days of call up. The ISS could have supported the additional crew for 80 days.
A different rescue mission profile was needed for STS-125, which serviced the Hubble Space Telescope and couldn’t reach the orbital inclination of the ISS. This rescue mission, STS-400, had to be ready to launch within three days of a problem being found.
The last planned shuttle mission was STS-134, with STS-335 as the LON mission. Since the hardware for 335 existed, NASA decided to fly it as an operational mission, STS-135. At this point there could be no backup shuttle, so 135 was flown with just four crew members who would shelter on ISS and come down one at a time via Soyuz over the course of about a year if the shuttle couldn’t re-enter.
What about the damaged orbiter stuck at ISS? Orbiters were quite expensive, so NASA developed hardware (which was stored on ISS) to attempt a landing of the empty orbiter via remote control. Whatever the probability of success, it was better than zero.
After the loss of STS-107, the investigation board asked NASA to devise a rescue that could have been attempted if the damage had been identified early in the mission. [1] The result was an audacious rescue plan that would have pushed two orbiters, their crews, and NASA itself to the absolute limit. We will never know if it could have been done.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-3xx [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/the-audacious-rescue...
To make it worse... If I understood the situation in these twitter posts correctly, they were in the middle of a spacewalk. So they'd need to first quickly terminate that spacewalk, which also takes some time.
Edit: according to https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2022/12/14/spacewalk-can... they were still preparing for the spacewalk, so they weren't outside yet.
Its like losing one drive in a RAID mirror; you still have a "RAID", well, kind of, but should be nervous until its replaced...
Youtube has a livestream from NASA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21X5lGlDOfg
Tangentially related question: How dangerous are high-velocity gas clouds? Like, say rocket exhaust? Is that a thing, or does it always disperse quickly enough to to be a non-issue?
My guess (with no expertise to back it) is that it should dissipate quickly and will not be an issue to anyone.
They'll boil or sublimate in sunlight, and while they'd notionally condense in the earth's shadow their molecules will be too spread out for that to matter. So any ice balls will last for at most half an orbit, which I think is less than an hour at that altitude.
Velocity is relative; they'd be high-velocity relative to anything going straight up through that orbit, or in a retrograde orbit, but they're low-velocity compared to the ISS or anything coming up to meet it.
> Tangentially related question: How dangerous are high-velocity gas clouds? Like, say rocket exhaust? Is that a thing, or does it always disperse quickly enough to to be a non-issue?
They'll dissipate very quickly, space is at zero pressure.
"The leak appears to have originated in an external cooling loop located at the aft end of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. Public affairs officer Rob Navias, who was commentating on the spacewalk for NASA Television, characterized the spacecraft as leaking "fairly substantially." Video of the leak showed particles streaming continuously from the Soyuz, a rather remarkable sight. This was likely ammonia, which is used as a spacecraft coolant, although Russian officials have not confirmed this."
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I believe breathing any of it in would be accompanied by a quick death
Very different sort of leak.
CRS-26 Cargo Dragon
Crew-5 Dragon
Cygnus-18
Progress 81
Progress 82
Soyuz MS-22
It probably wouldn’t be a pleasant landing, but it’s unlikely to injure them significantly.
Just the two Dragons and the Soyuz, right?
Edit: neat that I get to call a spacecraft a “Dragon”.
That being said, G-forces of such a steep descent would probably kill them instead.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russians-call-off-spacewalk-soy...
Then again, I don't want to go to space at all with current tech and my opinion is probably different from those who do.
There's a difference between watching a livestream and actually being there, just as there's a difference between seeing a picture of $COUNTRY vs. actually visiting
I for one want to soar to the heavens and experience it first hand, not vicariously through staring at a screen full of numbers. Exploration is a human experience, not just a way to get grant money to invest for retirement.
Then again, there are plenty of quotes from NASA engineers describing the 1/10,000 per flight expected fatalities of shuttle as being ridiculously pessimistic, so clearly this is hard to estimate.
Quote is at around 19.00
What do you think Earth is?
It is even less than a rock: looking from some distance, it is just a pale blue dot https://youtu.be/wupToqz1e2g