Empty spacecraft will be needed to return crew from International Space Station

Published January 13, 2023

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John Crassidis spoke to The Houston Chronicle about how, for the first time in 60 years of human spaceflight, a replacement spacecraft is being launched to bring crew members home after the Russian Soyuz capsule that carried them into space was damaged by a micrometeoroid roughly 1 millimeter in diameter.

Crassidis, Moog Professor of Innovation in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, said it’s hard to definitively say the damage was not caused by debris, partly because it’s impossible to track items of 1 millimeter.

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