Damaged Soyuz MS-22 to return to Earth under shortened program - Roscosmos

MOSCOW. Feb 22 (Interfax) - Roscosmos plans to test the damaged Soyuz MS-22 during its return to Earth, and it will be brought down from orbit under a shortened program, Roscosmos Executive Director for Manned Space Programs Sergei Krikalev said.

"We plan to continue testing this ship as the descent in emergency mode is new information, new knowledge. Therefore, we will probably conduct the descent using a shortened program, and we will try to take maximum information from this ship during its unmanned descent," Krikalev said in a video released by the Roscosmos press service on Wednesday.

Vladimir Solovyov, flight director for the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS), said on February 20 the damaged Soyuz MS-22 was scheduled to return to Earth unmanned in late March.

Krikalev earlier said the ship's landing capsule would land at a regular landing site in Kazakhstan.

On December 15, 2022, Roscosmos said that Russian cosmonauts had cancelled a spacewalk from the ISS after discovering a leak in the outer loop of the MS-22's radiator. On January 11, Borisov said that an analysis confirmed that the spacecraft was damaged by a micrometeorite. A piece of space debris is deemed responsible for the 1mm hole in the skin of the instrument module. The damaged Soyuz MS-22 is supposed to land unmanned.