International Space Station’s orbit to be raised by over 2 kilometers

Source: ITAR TASS

 

MOSCOW, April 29. /ITAR-TASS/. The orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) will be corrected on Tuesday by raising it by 2.15 kilometers (1.3 miles), the Mission Control Center reported.

“The maneuver will be carried out using the thrusters of Progress M-21M cargo spacecraft, which is currently docked with the station,” the center said. “The thrusters will be switched on at 11:45 Moscow time [7:45 GMT] and will stay operational for 566.8 seconds [about 9.5 minutes].”

The station will be raised to the altitude of 415.2 kilometers (258 miles) and the adjustment is made to ensure better docking conditions of the Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft, which is scheduled to blast off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on May 28 to bring a new crew to the ISS.

The Progress M-21M docked with the orbital station on November 30. The docking operation was being carried out by means of the new approach system in an automatic mode. However, ISS crew commander Oleg Kotov switched over to a manual docking operation when the spacecraft was 50 meters away.