Moscow:

Russia’s Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft successfully docked to the International Space Station Monday, four days after its launch was delayed due to a technical issue, the Roscosmos space agency said.

On board is Belarus’ first female cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya, experienced Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and US astronaut Tracy Dyson, who blasted off on Saturday for a two-day journey.

“Soyuz MS-25 has docked to the ISS,” Roscosmos said.

Novitsky and Vasilevskaya will spend 14 days in orbit, returning home aboard the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft with US astronaut Loral O’Hara, while Dyson will spend 184 days in space.

MS-25’s take-off was aborted seconds before launch on Thursday, raising further questions about the reliability of Russia’s beleaguered space programme.

Once a space-faring pioneer, Moscow has faced multiple setbacks since the collapse of the USSR, including the loss of two Mars missions and its first lunar probe in almost 50 years last August.

Space is one of the final areas of US-Russia cooperation amid an almost complete breakdown in relations between Moscow and Washington over the last two years.

For almost a decade, Russian Soyuz launches were the only way to ferry astronauts between Earth and the ISS, after NASA halted its Space Shuttle programme. 

But the United States has now moved to using privately-built SpaceX rockets and capsules, ending Russia’s monopoly on manned launches.

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A Russian science lab at the International Space Station [File]
| Photo Credit: NASA/AP

Coolant leaked from a backup line at the International Space Station, Russian officials said Monday, adding that there was no risk to the crew or the outpost.

Russian space agency Roscosmos said that coolant leaked from an external backup radiator for Russia’s new science lab. The lab’s main thermal control system was working normally, the agency emphasised.

“The crew and the station aren’t in any danger,” Roscosmos said.

NASA confirmed that there is no threat to the station’s crew of seven and that operations are continuing as usual.

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Roscosmos said engineers were investigating the cause of the leak. The incident follows recent coolant leaks from Russian spacecraft parked at the station. Those leaks were blamed on tiny meteoroids.

The lab — named Nauku, which means science — arrived at the space station in July 2021.

Last December, coolant leaked from a Soyuz crew capsule docked to the station, and another similar leak from a Progress supply ship was discovered in February. A Russian investigation concluded that those leaks likely resulted from hits by tiny meteoroids, not manufacturing flaws.

The Soyuz leak resulted in an extended stay for NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and his two Russian crewmates, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, who spent 371 days in orbit instead of six months. A replacement capsule was sent to the station for their ride home.

The space station, which has served as a symbol of post-Cold War international cooperation, is now one of the last remaining areas of cooperation between Russia and the West amid the tensions over Moscow’s military action in Ukraine. NASA and its partners hope to continue operating the orbiting outpost until 2030.

Current residents are: NASA’s astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara, the European Space Agency’s Andreas Mogensen, Russian cosmonauts Konstantin Borisov, Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa.