MOSCOW. Jan 13 (Interfax) - The International Space Station (ISS) will be lifted by more than a kilometer on January 21 in order to take in the next crew, Roscosmos said on Tuesday.
"Yet another ISS orbital adjustment has been scheduled for January 21, 2021, for the purpose of forming ballistic conditions prior to the landing of the Soyuz MS-17 manned transport spaceship and the launch and docking of the Soyuz MS-18," the state corporation said.
According to data from the Mission Control Center, the engines of the Progress MS-14 space freighter will be started at 7:14 p.m. Moscow time and run for 418.5 seconds. The station's average orbital height will be increased by approximately 1.2km to around 419.77km above the Earth.
The previous such adjustment was made on November 13, 2020.
The Soyuz MS-18 crew consists of Oleg Novitsky, Pyotr Dubov and Sergei Korsakov. This will be the first flight in 20 years with an all-Russian crew.