MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/. Specialists of Russia’s Mission Control Center have sent to the International Space Station (ISS) their new recommendations on urgent descent of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, but there is no need to use them at the moment, Russia’s state-run space corporation Roscosmos told TASS on Friday.
According to communications between the Mission Control and the ISS crew, broadcast by NASA, the ground control has sent an updated version of the urgent descent procedure to the crew and asked them to put it inside the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft.
"Such recommendations are always kept aboard a spacecraft and are updated on a regular basis. The mission control stressed that there were no prerequisites for them to be used," the corporation said.
Roscosmos said that although it understands the media’s interest to the current situation involving the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, but asks journalists to avoid creating unnecessary hype around it.
On Thursday, the outer plating of the instrument and equipment compartment of the Soyuz MS-22 crewed spacecraft docked to the ISS was damaged. Shortly afterwards the crew reported that a sensor was signaling a drop of pressure in the cooling system. Roscosmos told the media a troubleshooting team was analyzing the situation in order to propose further measures to be taken by Mission Control and the ISS crew.
Earlier, Roscosmos said a scheduled spacewalk had been canceled for technical reasons. As a Mission Control specialist said during a communication session with the cosmonauts, the spacewalk had been canceled due to problems with the thermal control system of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft docked to the ISS. Inside, the spacecraft remains airtight.