Replacement Soyuz arrives at space station

An uncrewed Soyuz spacecraft launched to replace a damaged Soyuz arrived at the International Space Station Feb. 25.

The Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft docked with the station’s Poisk module at 7:58 p.m. Eastern, a few minutes ahead of schedule. The spacecraft had launched two days earlier on a Soyuz-2.1a rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Instead of a crew, it carried about 430 kilograms of cargo to the station.

Soyuz MS-23 was originally to launch a replacement crew of two Russian cosmonauts and one American astronaut to the station in March. Those plans changed after the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft docked to the station experienced a coolant leak in mid-December that Roscosmos later concluded made it infeasible for it to return the crew to Earth as originally planned.