MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. Working groups will formulate their expert view on the Soyuz MS-22 manned spacecraft whose coolant system was damaged by December 27, Roscosmos Head Yury Borisov said on Monday.

"I believe that at the end of December, somewhere on the 27th [of December], specialists - and now two working groups have been set up - will decide on how we will resolve this situation," the Roscosmos head said in an interview with the daily Izvestia.

There is plenty of time for making decisions and "there is no hurry," Borisov stressed.

"If the situation is under control and we are fully confident in the spaceship’s working capacity, it will be used for the crew’s standard descent as was planned in March. If the situation develops under a different scenario, we, of course, have backup options," the Roscosmos chief said, adding that the crew could return to Earth aboard another spaceship, the Soyuz MS-23.

The Russian space agency has set up two working groups to look into the emergency, analyze the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft’s technical condition and work out recommendations for further actions by Mission Control specialists and the crew of the ISS Russian segment. They will scrutinize all the data transmitted from the ISS and the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft.

Coolant leak at Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft

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.

As Roscosmos reported, Roscosmos flight controllers conducted a series of tests of the Soyuz MS-22 spaceship’s systems, including a test of its propulsion control system that involved short-term activation of its berthing and attitude thrusters. The tests revealed that there were no other faults found.

On December 18, the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft’s external surface was inspected with the help of cameras aboard the space station. The analysis of the data transmitted to Earth helped detect a potential leak in the spacecraft’s instrumentation/equipment compartment. According to preliminary data, the damage could have been caused by a micrometeoroid or space debris striking the external cooling loop located on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft’s instrumentation/equipment compartment.