Space Station Dragon gets fifth ‘lifeguard’ seat

Jan. 18 () –

The Dragon Endurance spacecraft docked at the International Space Station is being retrofitted with a fifth seat, as a lifeboat in a hypothetical evacuation of the orbital complex.

This is the seat that NASA astronaut Frank Rubio has assigned in the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft, also docked at the Station and for which a return to Earth without crew after registering a meteoroid impact in December that has reduced its degree of thermal protection.

The move of the seat liner is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, January 17, with installation and set-up continuing through most of January 18, NASA reported on the mission blog.

The change allows for increased crew protection by reducing the thermal load inside the MS-22 spacecraft for cosmonauts Prokopyev and Petelin in the event of an emergency return to Earth.

Once the replacement Soyuz MS-23 arrives at the space station on February 22Rubio’s seat lining will be transferred to the new Soyuz and those of Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin’s seats will be transferred from the MS-22 to the MS-23 before their return on the Soyuz.