A Progress supply ship completed a two-day trip to the International Space Station on Wednesday, successfully guided by cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov using a remote control console inside the station after an automated encounter system had problems moments before docking.
The Progress MS-16 cargo freighter connected to the Pirs mooring bay at 1:26 am EST (0626 GMT) on Wednesday) to deliver the cargo before deploying with the module later this year to pave the way for the arrival of a new Russian research laboratory.
Ryzhikov, commander of the station’s seven-person Expedition 64 crew, was monitoring the spacecraft’s final approach, ready to take on a manual flight control system in the event of a problem with the Progress freighter’s Kurs radar-guided encounter system. . The Kurs system failed when the supply ship moved less than 70 feet, or 20 meters, from the space station, prompting the veteran cosmonaut to activate the TORU manual flight control system within the complex.
Using controls within the Zvezda service module, Ryzhikov guided the Progress MS-16 spacecraft to dock with Pirs, ending the cargo ship’s journey to the space station after a Sunday night (US time) launch of the Baikonur Cosmodrome at Kazakhstan on top of a Soyuz-2.1a Rocket.
The cargo mission marks the 77th launch of a Progress supply ship to the International Space Station since 2000. The previous Progress cargo ship, Progress MS-15, detached from the space station on February 9 and made a destructive re-entry into the atmosphere, getting rid of garbage and making way for the arrival of fresh cargo delivery.
The Progress MS-16 delivered about 5,424 pounds, or 2,460 kg, of cargo and supplies to the space station and its seven-person crew, according to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.
The payload of the freighter includes about 3,086 pounds (1,400 kg) of dry cargo packed inside the pressurized compartment of the Progress spacecraft. There is also 1,322 pounds (600 kilograms) of propellant to power the space station’s Zvezda service module propulsion system, along with 926 pounds (420 kilograms) of fresh water and 89 pounds (40.5 kilograms) of pressurized gases to supplement the breathing of the atmosphere space station.
The Progress MS-16 spacecraft also carries equipment to help cosmonauts detect and correct leaks at the space station, as well as Russian biomedical experiments and a research payload to study obtaining food and oxygen from algae in microgravity, Roscosmos said.
The supply ship will stay at the space station until July, when Progress is scheduled to leave with the Pirs mooring compartment in tow. The Progress MS-16 will guide itself, along with the disused Pirs module, back into the atmosphere to burn at the end of its mission.
The Pirs module has served as a docking door and a decompression chamber for cosmonauts on spacewalks since 2001. A similar module called Poisk has a similar function and will remain on the space station.
Removing the Pirs module releases an anchorage port on the Zvezda service module, the central hub of the Russian segment of the space station, for the arrival of the long-delayed Nauka laboratory later this year after the launch of a heavy-duty Proton rocket. The Nauka laboratory module will be the biggest addition to the Russian segment of the station since 2000, when Zvezda himself was launched.
Send an email to the author.
Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.