NASA: Russia cancelled cosmonauts’ spacewalk due to coolant leak

The spacewalk of two Russian cosmonauts was canceled after a leak of a cooling agent was detected, NASA reported.

Russia’s Roscosmos agency reported that the spacewalk of Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin was canceled after the alarm of one of the diagnostic systems of the Soyuz spacecraft docked to the International Space Station went off.

The departure was scheduled for Wednesday.

NASA said a coolant leak was detected in the back of the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft.

“NASA and Roscosmos will continue to work together to determine next steps after analysis,” the U.S. aerospace agency said. – Crew members aboard the space station are safe and were not threatened at the time of the leak.”

U.S. astronaut Frank Rubio traveled to the ISS with two Russian cosmonauts on a Soyuz spacecraft that launched from a launch site in Kazakhstan on Sept. 21.

Space is one of the few areas of cooperation between Moscow and Washington since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February and the ensuing sanctions against Moscow that have damaged relations between the two countries.

The International Space Station appeared in orbit in 1998 during a period of hope for U.S.-Russian cooperation after the Cold War space race.