The official said that after pertinent calculations were made, it was decided that the spacecraft should return without a crew, since the possibility of using it to rescue the crew be considered only in especially critical cases aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

A depressurization of the external circuit of the radiator of the thermal control system of the Soyuz MS-22 took place on December 15th, 2022, which caused the refrigerant in the circuit to be lost, thence declared the circuit non-operational.

A commission was quickly created to analyze the anomalous situation, and tests of the Soyuz MS-22 movement, navigation control system and mathematical modeling of thermal processes during orbit descent were carried out, the head of Roscosmos explained.

Cosmonauts Anna Kikina, Dimitri Petelin and Sergei Prokopiev remain aboard the International Space Station.

Roscosmos reported earlier that the incident that affected the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft did not affect the work of the Russian segment of the ISS, so the cosmonauts are working according to plan.

Borisov reported that the Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft will depart from Earth on February 20th in unmanned mode transporting cargo and returning with the ISS crew.

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