Russia may help send a mission to the International Space Station for 3 astronauts after a leak in its Soyuz capsule

• The Russian space agency is considering a rescue mission for three international space astronauts.

• The Soyuz capsule that took them to space has a leak but everyone on the ISS is safe, NASA said.

• A Russian space ministry official said an unmanned capsule could be sent to bring them back to earth.

Russia was planning a rescue mission to bring back three astronauts from the International Space Station after a leak was detected in the Soyuz capsule that brought them to the station.

The Russian space agency Roscosmos said at a news conference Thursday that the plan was to “liberate” the plan to bring back the crew members earlier than expected, which would involve retrieving an empty space shuttle to the ISS, Reuters reported.

The mission would bring back two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut, The Washington Post reported.

NASA said there was a leak in the cold capsule that landed on the ISS, but that the crew was not in danger.

Sergei Krikalev, Roscosmos’ executive director of the human space program, said at a news conference that NASA and Roscosmos were trying to insist that if the Soyuz landed on the ISS now it was safe enough to bring it back home, reports said.

Joel Montalbano, NASA’s ISS program manager, said the unmanned Soyuz capsule could be launched in February, according to The Guardian, cutting the delay short by about a month.

According to NASA, the leak was discovered on December 14, when two Roscosmos cosmonauts were preparing for a spacewalk.

Both NASA and Roscosmos officials said at a press conference Thursday that they are investigating how the coolant line of the outer capsule’s radiator got punctured, The Guardian reported.

NASA said in a statement that the leak was the capsule that brought two cosmonauts, Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio into space on September 21.

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