Russian cargo ship brings necessary supplies and equipment to the space station

A Russian pilotless Progress space freighter loaded with nearly 3 tons of supplies and equipment bound for the International Space Station took off on Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and safely docked at the laboratory complex after the last-second concern about possible misalignment.

Carrying out an autonomous approach, the Progress MS-15 / 76P spacecraft docked in the Earth-facing Pirs module at 1:45 pm ET. An apparent misalignment when the spacecraft closed on the cosmonaut caused Anatoly Ivanishin to ask Russian flight controllers if he should take over and fly the spacecraft manually by remote control.

“Are we going to switch to manual control, Moscow?” Ivanishin asked as Progress moved less than 15 feet from the docking port. While Progress cargo ships are designed to fly to the dock, they are equipped with systems that allow cosmonauts aboard the station to take over if necessary.

“Wait. We don’t have a chance yet,” someone replied. Then, with the spacecraft just a few meters from the station and constantly approaching, mission control radioed: “Everything is nominal, Anatoli. Do nothing.”

It did not, and seconds later the cargo ship’s docking mechanism confronted its station counterpart and Progress halted and locked in place. On board: 1,102 pounds of propellant; 220 pounds of oxygen and air; 926 pounds of water; and 3,351 pounds of crew supplies, spare parts, and investigative equipment.

Despite the somewhat tense final approach, the flight got off to a spectacular start when the Soyuz booster roared to life at 10:23 a.m. (8:23 p.m. local time), accelerated to full thrust, and smoothly exited its post. shooting range and directly into the orbit plane of the space station.

Forty-one seconds after takeoff, the laboratory complex passed directly over Baikonur, and when Progress reached orbit eight minutes later, the laboratory, moving at nearly 5 miles per second, was nearly 1,100 miles ahead of the ship. load.

Cosmonaut Ivan Vagner was able to photograph the launch when the station passed 260 miles above the cosmodrome, tweeting photos from orbit that showed the glowing escapement column of the booster against the backdrop of Kazakhstan, far below.

With the launch of Progress and the docking behind them, the station’s five-person crew will focus their attention on preparing for the departure next week astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule to complete a 64-day mission.

The decoupling of the Harmony module is targeted for the night of August 1 with a dip in the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean off the east coast of Florida on August 2. Ivanishin and Vagner will remain in orbit along with station commander Chris Cassidy.

Because the Crew Dragon spacecraft used for this mission requires relatively light winds and calm seas, NASA and SpaceX are monitoring seven candidate sites for the splash and will select a primary and a backup shortly before undocking.

Hurley and Behnken were released to the station on May 30 to begin a long-awaited pilot test of the Crew Dragon, the first launch of U.S. astronauts from U.S. territory since the space shuttle retired in 2011.

The Crew Dragon conducted mostly automated docking and docking and has since been turned off, except for regular health checks. Your next return to Earth will mark NASA’s first oceanic dip since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program in 1975.