MOSCOW. May 16 (Interfax) - The Russian space mission control will once again raise the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) at the end of June so that the quickest cargo spacecraft in history could dock with it.
"The ISS orbit's adjustment is planned for June 21 to provide proper ballistic conditions for its docking with the Progress MS-09 cargo spacecraft, which should reach the station in a record 3.5-hour period of time," a space rocket industry source told Interfax.
Space mission control specialists will raise the station's orbit by burning the engines of the Progress MS-08 cargo spacecraft currently docked to the station.
The method used which spacecraft makes only two revolutions around the earth between its launch and docking should be tested first on cargo spacecraft and then be applied to manned Soyuz MS spacecraft. The current conventional docking method takes about 50 hours.
It had been reported earlier that the launch of a Progress cargo spacecraft planned originally for February 11 was postponed to February 13. A source at the Baikonur Cosmodrome said to Interfax at the time that the launch of the Soyuz 2.1A vehicle carrying the Progress MS-08 cargo spacecraft was tentatively postponed due to malfunction in a channel of an onboard computer.
A spacewalk planned by U.S. astronauts from the ISS was subsequently postponed to February 16 from February 15 as the Progress MS-08 cargo spacecraft's docking with the ISS took 50 hours.