The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft is already on its way to the International Space Station for rescue the three astronauts – two Russians and one American – who carry months there trapped.

Russia has launched the ship without a crew on board in the early hours of this Friday to bring back his two cosmonauts, Sergei Prokópiev and Dmitri Petelin, and NASA astronaut of Salvadoran origin Frank Rubio.

Specifically, the Soyuz-2 carrier rocket was launched at 03:24 (Moscow time), as scheduled by the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and Soyuz MS-23 is scheduled to dock with the Space Station on Sunday. The ship will return to Earth in September to the three Russian astronauts, who They have been on the ISS since September 21 2022, about six months longer than expected.

Despite tensions between Russia and the West over the invasion of Ukrainethe space agencies have not stopped cooperating During last year. Roscosmos made the decision to discard the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft for the return of the Russian-American crew to Earth after a leak was detected in its refrigeration system last December.

Subsequently, on February 11, another refrigerant leak was detected in the Russian space freighter Progress MS-21, which made the Russian space authorities fear that it was a design flaw and forced them to postpone the release of the Soyuz MS-23 until it passed a thorough inspection. Finally, on February 20 Roscosmos authorized the launch of the new ship after ruling out failures in the refrigeration system.

The Soyuz MS-23, designed to travel with crew members, carries 429 kilos of cargo on board, which includes medical equipment, means for cleaning the station and control of air purification systems and their balance of gases and supply of water, as well as food, clothing, spare parts and equipment for the Russian segment of the station. In addition, the ship transports equipment for various scientific experiments of the Russian space agency.

Crew number 68 is now working on the orbital platform, made up of seven people: the Russians Sergei Prokopiev, Dmitri Petelin and Anna Kikina; NASA astronauts Frank Rubio, Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, and Koichi Wakata from Japan.