Damaged Soyuz spacecraft's replacement arrives at International Space Station

A Soyuz spacecraft with no crew onboard arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday at 7:58 PM EST to replace another Soyuz that experienced damages. According to Space News, the Soyuz reached the ISS after it launched from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome at 7:24 PM on Thursday.

The Russian spacecraft's mission was to deliver supplies weighing 946 pounds to the International Space Station. It is a replacement for the Soyuz MS-22 that encountered a radiator coolant leak in December last year. The old spacecraft successfully transported Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio to the space station in September last year.

The trio is slated to return to our home planet later this year on the new Soyuz MS-23. Meanwhile, the damaged spacecraft will be undocked from the station towards the end of March and will head back to earth with an uncrewed parachute landing in Kazakhstan. After landing, Russia's Roscosmos will be conducting a post-flight evaluation of it. 

The Soyuz MS-23, the new ride home for NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, docked to the space station at 7:58pm ET as the station flew 260 miles above northern Mongolia. Read more.. https://t.co/kKxGu1ILGz pic.twitter.com/OwRwUBMDsh

— International Space Station (@Space_Station) February 26, 2023

What is the Soyuz? 

The Soyuz is a kind of spacecraft that was originally constructed by the Soviet Union in the 1960s under the Vostok program that aimed to carry out human spaceflight operations. It has, since then, served Russian space agencies for several missions such as transporting astronauts, launching robotic equipment, and performing research.

The Soyuz is launched by being affixed to a Soyuz rocket. For landing back to earth, it relies on parachutes and mostly lands in the steppes of Kazakhstan. The modern spacecraft is versatile and reliable, and comes to great use for human spaceflight missions.