MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/. The Russian Progress MS-15 resupply ship that undocked from the International Space Station on Tuesday splashed down in the Pacific Ocean outside shipping routes, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos announced.
“The Progress MS-15 quit the Earth’s orbit and ceased to exist. The spaceship’s non-combustible fragments that did not burn up in the dense layers of the atmosphere fell at about 12:13 p.m. Moscow time into the ‘spacecraft cemetery’ in the non-navigable area of the Southern Pacific,” Roscosmos specified.
Roscosmos earlier reported that it had fulfilled all the required procedures to announce the area temporarily dangerous for shipping and flights.
The Russian Progress MS-15 cargo spacecraft undocked from the orbital outpost at 08:21 a.m. Moscow time.
Progress MS-15 resupply ship
The Progress MS-15 resupply ship was launched atop a Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket from Site No. 31 (the Vostok launch pad) of the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan at 5:26 p.m. Moscow time on July 23, 2020. The cargo spacecraft docked to the orbital outpost at 8:45 p.m. Moscow time, setting a record by the speed of the flight to the space station among resupply ships (3 hours and 18 minutes).
The Progress MS is a Russian automated spacecraft developed specially for servicing orbital stations. Russia launches Progress MS spaceships to deliver various cargoes to the orbital outpost (propellant, scientific equipment, oxygen, water, food and other items) and also to adjust the space station’s orbit.
While the Progress MS-15 cargo spacecraft was docked to the orbital outpost, the space station’s orbit was not adjusted with its engines. Before its burying in the non-navigable area of the Pacific, cosmonauts put accumulated garbage into a cargo spacecraft and it burns up in the dense layers of the atmosphere.
The next launch of a cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station is scheduled for February 15 from the Baikonur cosmodrome. In addition to other cargoes, it will deliver an additional supply of nitrogen for oxygen regeneration and a repair and recovery kit to seal the air leak aboard the orbital outpost.
Currently, Russian cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov and Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, US astronauts Kathleen Rubins, Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi are working on the International Space Station.
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