On Friday, Russia launched a rescue ship for two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut who were stranded at the International Space Station after their original return vehicle developed a hazardous leak while parked. The rescue ship, a fresh and empty Soyuz capsule, is expected to arrive at the space station on Sunday, and the crew will use it to safely return to Earth

The December capsule leak was attributed to a micrometeorite that pierced an external radiator and drained its coolant. Earlier this month, it seemed to occur once more, this time on a docked Russian cargo ship. Each spacecraft had a small hole visible from the camera.

The replacement Soyuz launch was postponed while the Russian Space Agency checked for production flaws. The agency continued with the Friday morning launch of the capsule from Kazakhstan with bundles of supplies strapped into the three seats after no problems were discovered.

Two senior NASA officials traveled from the United States to witness the launch in person due to the urgent need for this capsule. To everyone's relief, the capsule successfully entered orbit nine minutes after liftoff. Rob Navias of NASA Mission Control in Houston described the journey as "a perfect ride to orbit."

It was decided by authorities that it would be too risky to return NASA's Frank Rubio, Sergey Prokopyev, and Dmitri Petelin in their damaged Soyuz next month as originally intended. Without coolant, the temperature in the cabin would rise during the return trip to Earth, possibly harming computers and other equipment and exposing the crew in protective clothing to extreme heat.

Emergency plans call for Rubio to switch to a SpaceX crew capsule that is docked at the space station until the new Soyuz arrives. In the unlikely event that a quick escape is required, Prokopyev and Petelin are still assigned to their damaged Soyuz. Russian engineers decided that one fewer passenger would help to keep the temperature at a hopefully manageable level.

By the end of March, the damaged Soyuz will land on Earth without anyone on board so that engineers can inspect it. This Soyuz was launched by the three men last September for a six-month mission. They will now spend the entire year in space until a new spacecraft is prepared for their crew replacements' launch in September. Their Soyuz was the one that had just taken off without any passengers.

According to NASA's deputy program manager for the space station, Dana Weigel, "the Russians are still taking a really close look" at both spacecraft leaks. They are investigating everything in an effort to comprehend that.

A brand-new NASA crew of four is taking off early on Monday from Florida's Kennedy Space Center atop a SpaceX rocket. The four astronauts who will return to Earth in a few weeks have already checked the Dragon capsule that will take them home, according to William Gerstenmaier of SpaceX, and "it all checked out fine."