The damaged spacecraft Progress MS-21, which had previously leaked coolant, will be deorbited on February 19. This was announced on February 18 Roskosmos.
It was noted that after the Progress MS-21 undocked from the International Space Station (ISS), specialists took pictures of its outer surface to determine the cause of the depressurization of the thermal control system.
“The deorbiting of the ship, which was scheduled for today at 07:03 Moscow time, was postponed to analyze the information received,” the state corporation’s website says.
Earlier, on February 18, Roskosmos reported that the deorbiting of the Progress MS-21 spacecraft had been postponed. At the same time, it was reported that the spacecraft had undocked from the ISS. It was supposed to bring the ship out of orbit, after which its unburned parts were supposed to fall in the non-navigable region of the South Pacific Ocean.
Prior to that, on February 11, the Mission Control Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) reported a coolant leak from the Progress MS-21 cargo spacecraft. Earlier on the same day, it became known that the Progress MS-21 circuit, which docked to the ISS, was depressurized.
At the same time, Roskosmos announced the start of the work of the commission, which began to analyze the causes of the leak on the Progress MS-21 cargo ship. According to Sergey Krikalev, Director of the State Corporation for Manned Space Programs, this incident is similar to the one that happened with the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft in December 2022.
On December 15, it became known about the damage to the radiator of the Soyuz MS-22 cooling system. According to the head of Roskosmos Yuri Borisov, the Soyuz MS-22 was depressurized due to external influences, as can be seen from the received images of the ship.
