MOSCOW. Oct 7 (Interfax) - The orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) has been adjusted ahead of the arrival of the Soyuz MS-17 manned spacecraft that will bring the next expedition to the station, Roscosmos press service said in a statement.
"In line with the flight program of the International Space Station, specialists of the Roscosmos state corporation carried out a scheduled adjustment of the ISS orbit. The engines of the Progress MS-14 cargo spacecraft docked to the Zvezda module were automatically switched on at 11:26 a.m. Moscow time to adjust the orbit," the statement said.
The engines worked for 412.9 seconds, which allowed to decrease the average ISS orbit by 1.3 kilometers to 418.6 kilometers over the Earth, it said.
A Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying the Soyuz MS-17 spaceship is due to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on October 14. The Soyuz MS-17 will be crewed by Sergei Ryzhikov and Sergei Kud-Sverchkov of Roscosmos and NASA's Kathleen Rubins.
The current ISS crew is composed of Russian cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner and U.S. astronaut Chris Cassidy.