The space crew uses a robotic arm to inspect the damaged capsule

The crew of the Earth-orbiting International Space Station (ISS) today inspected a Russian space capsule that is part of the station because it may have been damaged by a micrometeorite impact, as controllers on Earth consider sending a spacecraft to bring some of the crew home.

Russia's Roscosmos space corporation said a camera crew on a Canadian-made robotic arm captured images from the outside of the Soyuz MS-22 capsule, from the "downside" of the station — toward Earth — where a coolant leak was discovered on Wednesday.

Since the images arrive on Earth tomorrow, experts will analyze them and decide on the next steps by the end of the month.

Roskomos announced that one possible solution is to send another Soyuz capsule to the space station in the near future.

At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, they are preparing to launch the Soyuz MS-23 with a three-member crew in March, but they could send it earlier without a crew.

This would allow one of the seven crew members aboard the space station to return home.

Roscosmos said that the damage was on the outer surface of the instrument and equipment compartment. Roskosmos and NASA say the problem does not pose any danger to the crew.

The director of Roscosmos' manned space flight programs, Sergei Krikalev, said the leak could affect the operation of the capsule's coolant system and the temperature in the capsule's equipment compartment.

The Russian news agency Ria-Novosti reported that the temperature in the capsules had risen, but that ground controllers had managed to reduce it to normal levels.

Last Wednesday, while Russian cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin were preparing for a spacewalk, specialists on the ground saw a malfunction and the walk was postponed.

Along with Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio, four other crew members are at the space outpost: NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Kasada, Koichi Wakata of the Japan Space Agency and Anna Kikina of Roscosmos.