MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. A backup spacecraft to bring cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) back to Earth will be prepared by February 19 and the spaceship is currently undergoing tests at the Baikonur spaceport, Roscosmos Chief Yury Borisov said on Monday.

"Of course, we have backup options. We will prepare the spaceship faster. Instead of the scheduled March descent, we will prepare it somewhere by February 19. It is already installed at the Baikonur spaceport and undergoing all the tests," the Roscosmos head said in an interview with the daily Izvestia.

"In this situation, we will simply undock the Soyuz MS-22, it will descend to Earth and we will send a second spaceship to bring back the crew," Borisov said.

On December 15, a drop in pressure in the Soyuz MS-22 manned spacecraft’s external cooling loop was recorded as Russian cosmonauts were preparing for their scheduled spacewalk. A visual inspection of the spacecraft from the orbital outpost confirmed the coolant leak, which cancelled the spacewalk.