Dear MEL Topic Readers,
ISS SOS: The plan to leave a doomed space station - quickly
Earlier this month, four crew members from the International Space
Station (ISS) returned to Earth a month earlier than scheduled due to a medical
emergency of one of the crew members. It was the first medical evacuation in
the 25-year history of the ISS. The space mission always has a ferry ship ready
to take all the crew members back to Earth, but just one. That is why if something
goes wrong with the space station or someone is in a medical emergency, all crew
members need to leave the station together. Then what if the return spacecraft itself
had a problem? In November last year, the spacecraft docked with the Chinese
Tiangong space station was found to have damage from a fragment of orbiting space
debris. China’s space agency took quick action by launching an unmanned
replacement spacecraft in just 16 days and docking it with the space station in
less than four hours. For crewmembers in a space station, the returning spaceship
is their last resort lifeline.
Read the article and learn how space missions are planned and prepared.
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