NASA, Russia evaluating coolant leak on spacecraft at ISS

Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Russia's space agency is evaluating a coolant leak that was detected coming from the aft end of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft docked to the International Space Station, NASA said on Thursday.

The spacecraft had transported NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Roscomos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin to the space station from Kazakhstan on Sept. 21. A Russian spacewalk has been canceled while the leak is being evaluated.

"The crew members aboard the space station are safe and were not in any danger during the leak," NASA said in a statement.

Roscosmos said the external casing of the Russian spacecraft's instrumentation and equipment compartment was damaged. The crew later reported an activation of the sensor of the spaceship's fault detection system that signaled a drop in pressure in the cooling system.

"As of now, all the systems of the ISS and the spacecraft are operating in normal mode and the crew is in safety," Roscosmos said, according to the state-run news agency TASS.

"After the situation is analyzed, a decision will be made on further actions both by specialists on the ground and the crew members of the ISS Russian segment."

NASA said its engineers and Roscosmos will continue to work together to determine the next course of action following the ongoing analysis.