Russia's Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft has docked at the International Space Station (ISS) to pick up the trapped crew.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos announced the arrival of the Soyuz on Sunday (26/2/2023) morning local time.
Soyuz MS-23 took off from the Baikonour space center in Kazakhstan on Friday (24/2/2023).
The plane will bring back Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, as well as US astronaut Francisco Rubio.
The three are scheduled to end their mission in March 2023. They are trapped in outer space after the Soyuz MS-22 capsule's cooling system leaked two months ago.
The Soyuz MS-22 will then be brought back unmanned in March 2023.
“Today at 03:58 Moscow time, the Soyuz MS-23 unmanned spacecraft docked into the Poisk module of the International Space Station in automatic mode,” Roscosmos said on the Telegram messaging platform, quoted by Reuters .
The Poisk module is the docking module on the ISS.
Roscosmos chief executive Yuri Borisov said the Russian cosmonaut's next spacewalk at the station would take place in April or May 2023.
Soyuz MS-23 brought to the ISS an additional 429 kilograms of cargo needed to extend the astronaut's mission, according to reports by Russian news agencies.
