Soyuz spacecraft leak at space station cancels spacewalk by Russian cosmonauts

cosmonauts were forced to cancel a spacewalk as flight controllers on the ground worked to fix a large leak from one of Russia's crew spaceships.

The leak was discovered on Wednesday at 7:45 p.m. It was about an hour and 40 minutes before the spacewalk was to begin. The extravehicular activity was stopped after the two cosmonauts wore their space suits and were about to depressurize the airlock.

Instead, Prokopyev and Petelin, who were never in any danger, repressurized the airlock and reentered the space station.

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There are cameras on the space station that show a stream of frozen particles being ejected into space. It was thought that the source of the leak was the exterior coolant system.

The cause of the leak is not known at this time. Russian specialists are looking at the data and talking about what caused the leak.

The flight controllers said the space station was safe. For at least three hours the leak continued. NASA ended its live TV coverage of the incident at about 12:1 am on Thursday, promising updates on its website and social media channels.

NASA space station flight director Emily Nelson said that experts in Moscow would be looking at their systems and responding to the leak according to their procedures. We will make a decision about where to go after they understand the final status of the Soyuz.

Engineers at Russia's Mission Control Center in Moscow reviewed the data and data from the European Robotic Arm on the Russian segment of the space station.

The spaceship was launched in September with NASA and Prokopyev on board. In addition to being the three crewmates planned to ride home in March, the vehicle also serves as a "lifeboat" should an emergency arise.

The status of the Soyuz is not known. If necessary, the space station could be autonomously docked with the uncrewed Soyuz.

This was the second time that Prokopyev and Petelin had to cancel their EVA because of a problem with a Russian module. The two were about to leave the space station when there was an issue with a water pump.

There are seven crew members at the International Space Station. There are six people on the crew, three Russians, three Americans and one Japanese. The other four crew members were flown to the space station by the crew of the docked Crew Dragon.

The story was changed to include new comments from NASA flight director Emily Nelson.

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