A robotic Russian cargo ship laid low with a coolant leak undocked from the Worldwide Area Station late Friday (Feb.17) whereas a cosmonaut snapped photographs of it on the lookout for indicators of harm.
The Progress spacecraft, often called Progress 82 by NASA and Progress MS-21 by Russia’s Roscosmos space company, forged off from the space station’s Poisk module at 9:26 p.m. EST (0226 GMT) after almost 4 months on the orbiting lab. Its departure got here seven days after Roscosmos engineers reported a coolant leak on the uncrewed Progress ship on Feb. 11, prompting astronauts and cosmonauts to conduct a photograph inspection of the craft with a robotic arm for indicators of harm.
“The rationale for the coolant leak is constant to be investigated between our NASA specialists and Roscosmos counterparts,” Jeff Arend, the supervisor of NASA’s Worldwide Area Station engineering and integration workplace on the Johnson Space Center in Houston, informed reporters in a briefing Friday. “An inspection was accomplished earlier this week utilizing the Canadarm2 to collect imagery of the suspected space and the groups are evaluating that imagery.”
Associated: Russia releases 1st photos of damage to leaky Soyuz spacecraft
After Progress 82 undocked from the station, cosmonauts on the station commanded the ship to rotate 180 levels so they might snap extra imagery of the leaky spacecraft.
“After undocking from the Poisk module of the Worldwide Area Station, the outer floor of the Progress MS-21 cargo spacecraft was surveyed. No visible harm was discovered,” Roscosmos officers wrote in a Telegram update (opens in new tab) translated by Google.
Roscosmos initially deliberate to deorbit the disposable Progress 82 cargo ship late Friday night time. However after its undocking, officers debated extra choices for the spacecraft, together with probably redocking it to the station’s Russian-built Prichal module for extra inspections.
In the end, the company opted to eliminate the cargo ship over the South Pacific Ocean as deliberate. “The inclusion of the Progress MS-21 engine for deceleration to deorbit is scheduled for February 19 at 06:15 Moscow time. Because of this, the ship will enter the environment and collapse,” Roscosmos wrote in a subsequent Telegram post (opens in new tab).
The coolant leak on Progress 82 is the second since December on a Russian spacecraft on the Worldwide Area Station and occurred simply after the arrival of its replacement cargo ship Progress 83 final week. It adopted a coolant leak on the Soyuz MS-22 capsule on Dec. 14 that left three station crewmembers — two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut — with out a automobile to return residence.
Roscosmos engineers have decided {that a} micrometeroid impact likely caused the coolant leak on the Soyuz crew capsule, however the reason for the Progress 82 leak has but to be decided. Roscosmos initially deliberate to launch a alternative Soyuz for the stranded crewmembers (cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio) on Feb. 20. That launch was delayed to March after the invention of the Progress 82 coolant leak.
“The launch date of the uncrewed Soyuz MS-23 alternative spacecraft to the Worldwide Area Station is beneath assessment,” NASA wrote in a Feb. 15 update (opens in new tab).
Arend mentioned the Progress 82 cargo ship’s coolant leak affected the cargo ship’s autonomous avionics techniques that management the spacecraft, however it ought to have the ability to deorbit safely.
“Our Russian colleagues have performed assessments of how lengthy they will function that automobile with out cooling and we’re properly inside limits,” Arend mentioned. “So we expect all the avionics will function as deliberate and there was no affect to the propulsion system in any respect.”
“We’re very assured that the management of the automobile can be nominal,” he added.
E mail Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or observe him @tariqjmalik. Comply with us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.
