14 DAY TRIAL // A problem that bean late on Thursday, September 23, in the International Space Station's (ISS) docking system has delayed the return of three astronauts to Earth by at least a day.
Half of the six-astronaut crew aboard the orbital lab was supposed to return home in a Russian-built Soyuz space capsule, but as they attempted to do so, the docking system keeping the spacecraft attached to the space lab failed to open.
Engineers from Russian Mission Control are currently going about finding what went wrong. The glitch occurred in a docking port that can only accommodate Soyuz or Progress space capsules.
The spacecraft that the three astronauts were using is attached to the Poisk docking module, which is the latest addition to the ISS. It was commissioned by the Russian Federal Space Agency (RosCosmos).
As the group attempted to initiate the release maneuvers, a set of hooks and latches that normally keep the Soyuz affixed to the station refused to release their holds.
The two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut were supposed to land this morning, September 24, in the steppes of Kazakhstan, but now their reentry is scheduled for no earlier than Saturday, September 25.
“Well, we're not going to have another attempt today for the undocking. We're going to give the guys the go for the opening of the hatch and coming back into the ISS,” a mission controller from Russia radioed the three after the botched attempt.
Cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko (RosCosmos) and astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson (NASA) were wrapping up a six-month stay on the orbital facility, Space reports.
Their Soyuz TMA-18 capsule was supposed to separate from the ISS at 9:34 pm EDT (0134 September 24 GMT), as more than a dozen Russian aircraft were preparing to begin search&rescue efforts in Kazakhstan.
This is not the first malfunction to affect the Poisk module. After the three astronauts got into their capsules, the three remaining astronauts, all part of Expedition 24, had a rough time sealing the hatch between the two spacecraft.
Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin managed to discover a gear wheel that was missing two teeth, although it's still unclear whether the component played any part in either of the malfunctions.
Keep an eye on this space to learn how the situation on the ISS progresses.