The Russian Soyuz capsule that is supposed to pick up three astronauts from the International Space Station has arrived at its destination. According to space agency Roscosmos, the unmanned capsule will be docked to the ISS at 3.58 am (Moscow time) on Sunday. The spacecraft launched Friday.
Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin and American astronaut Francisco Rubio are currently staying on the ISS. They were supposed to return to Earth in March, but their return journey has been postponed to september due to a leak.
In December, a leak occurred in the Soyuz spacecraft with which the astronauts were supposed to travel. The leak caused coolant to flow away. Probably, the defect was caused by a collision with a micrometeoroid, a piece of space debris.
The Soyuz spacecraft docked to the ISS on Sunday has 429 kilograms of material and supplies on board. Now that the new capsule has arrived, the damaged capsule will return unmanned next month. Russia wants to try to land the space shuttle on earth in order to be able to investigate the damage.