In another thread I read the Soyuz is designed to stay in orbit for 200 days, which is in December for the one currently attached to ISS. So unless we can get a spaceship up to ISS by December, the crew has to return in December and the ISS will be left unmanned.
Can the Soyuz capsule be launched and docked while un-manned? If all doesn't go well with the investigation, they could do an un-manned launch to get an empty capsule up there to replace the currently docked capsule.
