An uncrewed Russian Soyuz capsule, MS-23, docked with the International Space Station (ISS) early on Sunday and will eventually bring home three astronauts whose initial return vehicle was damaged by a tiny meteoroid.

The MS-23 ship autonomously latched to the orbiting research lab, live video from ISS partner NASA showed, completing the Soyuz's two-day journey after taking off from Kazakhstan.

The new capsule will replace the Soyuz MS-22, which experienced a radiator coolant leak on December 14, 2022. It is expected to bring home U.S. astronaut Frank Rubio and Russian cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergei Prokopyev in September.

The three arrived at the ISS aboard the MS-22 in September 2022 and were originally only supposed to stay about six months – until the end of March.

But their capsule began leaking coolant in mid-December after being hit by what U.S. and Russian officials believe was a tiny space rock.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, decided to send MS-23 to replace the damaged vessel, but without the planned three crew members.

With no one to replace them, Rubio, Petelin and Prokopyev will now spend almost a year in space.

The damaged MS-22 is expected to depart the space station without passengers and return to Earth in late March.

There are four others currently aboard the ISS. They arrived on a SpaceX Dragon capsule in October 2022 as part of the Crew-5 mission.

They are scheduled to be joined next week by members of the Crew-6 mission – two Americans, an Emirati and a Russian – who will also arrive aboard a SpaceX capsule expected to depart on  Monday from Florida.

After a few days of overlap, Crew-5 will then return to Earth.

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Russia launches uncrewed Soyuz MS-23 spaceship in rescue mission to ISS

(With input from AFP)