In December of last year, shortly before a spacewalk, the thermal circuit of manned spacecraft Soyuz MS-22 depressurized. A Soyuz-2.1a rocket with the Soyuz MS-23 unmanned spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Friday. The Soyuz MS-23 should bring back the Soyuz MS-22 crew to Earth on September 27, 2023.
The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft will stay in orbit for 215 days, and the crew that it will transport back to Earth will have spent at least 370 days at the station, setting a record, according to Roscosmos.
Roscosmos decided to send the next Soyuz MS-23 spaceship to the ISS to bring back the MS-22 crew, including Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, as well as US astronaut Frank Rubio, because of the non-functioning cooling system of the Soyuz MS-22. The Soyuz MS-22 will be grounded without a crew.