A Russian spacecraft carrying an algae experiment, long-term medical tests and thousands of pounds of other cargo and supplies safely docked at the International Space Station on Wednesday (February 17) after a cosmonaut took over manual control of the spacecraft. during your approach.
The Russian uncapped freighter Progress MS-16 (also known as Progress 77) met the orbital complex at 01h27 EST (0627 GMT), when it clung to the station’s Pirs anchoring component, according to a NASA update. It was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sunday (February 14).
Although designed to dock at the space station, the Progress spacecraft was manually controlled during docking by Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov, the station’s commander, due to a problem with the cargo ship’s Kurs automated encounter system, NASA officials said.
“Control was transferred to the TORU system for manual flight of the ISS Progress 77 refueling vessel due to the signal strength of the Kurs automated system,” NASA wrote in an update on Twitter. “The station commander, Sergey Ryzhikov, is in control of the Progress 77 from a control panel inside Zvezda.”
Video: Watch Russia’s Progress 77 cargo ship take off
Related: How Russia’s Progress Cargo Ships Work (Infographic)
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NASA was unable to broadcast a live video of the docking on NASA television – which it normally tries to do – because of the continuous power outages in Texas that affect agency personnel and associated transmission capabilities, NASA said in an update before the event. A strong winter storm on Sunday (February 14) cut electricity to millions of Texans, with 3.6 million homes and businesses still in the dark in sub-zero temperatures on Tuesday (February 16), CNN said .
Progress 77 brought 5,424 pounds. (2,460 kg) of supplies and cargo for the crew of Expedition 64. The delivery included new research experiments, supplies for the crew (such as clothing and food), fresh water, nitrogen gas and propellant for the service module propulsion system Zvezda from the station.
The spacecraft will also play a historic role by leaving the space station later this year. NASA said that when the time comes, Progress will not fall apart like previous missions; instead, it will remain connected to the Pirs and pull the entire docking compartment away from the ISS for planned destruction in Earth’s atmosphere. The Pirs have been in service for almost 20 years and a replacement will be made soon, NASA said.
“Pirs’ departure from the space station is scheduled to take place a few days after the launch of the multipurpose laboratory module ‘Nauka’ on a Baikonur Proton rocket,” NASA said in a statement. “The multifunctional port and the research facility will automatically dock at the port vacated by Pirs.”
The Russian Progress 77 spacecraft docked in the station’s Pirs docking compartment today at 1:27 am ET delivering 1.1 tonnes of nitrogen, water and propellant to the station. More … https://t.co/S3aIp51Fsg pic.twitter.com/BHezoE9EG9February 17, 2021
Some experiments were included in the Progress delivery, including the following listed on the Energy website (Energia is the main developer and contractor of Russia’s manned space flight program):
- Neurolab kits for medical experiments designed to examine the impacts of long-term space flights on Russian cosmonauts;
- An experiment called Aseptic, which will “allow the development of sterility provisions during the performance of biological experiments in conditions of space flight”, according to Energia;
- A photobioreactor that will examine how it is possible to produce food and oxygen from algae in microgravity, which could also be useful for long-term space missions;
- Hardware called Cascad, which will study the production of cell cultures in microgravity;
- An experiment called Biodegradation, which will examine microorganisms in the space station’s atmosphere to see how they affect structural materials.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include details of the manual docking of the Progress 77 cargo ship.
Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and in Facebook.