Damaged Soyuz MS-22 to bring Russian spacesuit's faulty battery back to Earth

MOSCOW. Feb 20 (Interfax) - The faulty battery of one of the Orlan-MKS spacesuits, whose failure led to the cancellation of a spacewalk under the Russian program, will be brought back to Earth on the damaged Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, Vladimir Solovyov, flight director for the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS), said.

The Soyuz MS-22 "will carry a unit of purely technical equipment, which interests us for analysis on Earth." "As to some equipment whose failure is unclear to us, we are going to return that," Solovyov said in an interview with Rossiya-24 (VGRK) television on Monday.

The battery of one of the spacesuits, whose malfunction led to the cancellation of the spacewalk, will be returned to Earth, he said.

Solovyov said earlier on Monday the damaged Soyuz MS-22 is expected to return to Earth unmanned in late March. The spaceship will carry 200-250 kilograms of cargo to Earth, he said.

The battery charge in cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev's spacesuit dropped as he was working in outer space on August 17, 2022. Ground specialists decided to return the cosmonaut to the ISS to recharge the battery.

Mission Control later decided to wrap up the work in outer space early. Cosmonaut Denis Matveev, who was also working outside the station, was ordered to follow Artemyev to the ISS airlock.