An empty Russian Soyuz spacecraft with three empty seats is currently heading to the International Space Station . It began its journey from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 7:24 p.m. ET on Thursday, February 23.It’s come about after another Soyuz spacecraft, which is currently docked at the ISS, sprung a serious coolant leak in December. That was a problem, as it meant that the three astronauts who traveled to the station aboard the now-damaged spacecraft had no ride home.
Roscosmos will attempt to return the damaged MS-22 capsule to Earth, too, so that it can examine it more closely to confirm if the leak was caused by a micrometeoroid strike. NASA will live stream the spaceship’s rendezvous and docking, with coverage starting at 7:15 p.m. ET on Saturday, February 25. As part of the Crew-6 mission, NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev will arrive aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Tuesday for a six-month stay.