A Russian cargo ship ended its eight-month orbital stick with an intentional dying dive into Earth’s environment on Sunday night time (Oct. 23).
The uncrewed Progress 80 freighter, which introduced greater than 3 tons of meals and provides to the International Space Station (ISS) in February, undocked from the orbiting lab at 6:46 p.m. EDT (2246 GMT) on Sunday.
“The spacecraft backed away from the space station, and some hours later, Progress’ engines fired in a deorbit maneuver to ship the cargo craft right into a damaging re-entry within the Earth’s environment over the Pacific Ocean,” NASA officers wrote in an update (opens in new tab) on Monday (Oct. 24).
Associated: How Russia’s Progress spaceships work (infographic)
Progress is one in every of three robotic spacecraft that usually ferry provides to the ISS, together with SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus car. Progress and Cygnus fritter away in Earth’s atmosphere when their orbital work is finished, whereas Dragon comes residence for protected splashdowns and future reuse.
Three visiting spacecraft stay connected to the ISS after Progress 80’s departure — the Progress 81 freighter, a Russian Soyuz and the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endurance.
These latter two automobiles are astronaut taxis, and each lifted off comparatively lately. The Soyuz launched on Sept. 21 and Endurance adopted swimsuit on Oct. 5, flying on SpaceX’s Crew-5 mission for NASA.
One other Russian freighter will carry off quickly to take the place of the lately departed Progress 80. The uncrewed Progress 82 spacecraft is scheduled to launch atop a Soyuz rocket Tuesday (Oct. 25) at 8:20 p.m. EDT (0020 GMT on Oct. 26).
If all goes based on plan, Progress 82 will arrive on the ISS on Thursday (Oct. 27) at 10:49 p.m. EDT (0249 GMT on Oct. 28). You may watch the launch and docking reside right here at House.com, courtesy of NASA TV.
Mike Wall is the writer of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a guide in regards to the seek for alien life. Observe him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Observe us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).
