A robotic Russian cargo ship affected by a coolant leak undocked from the International Space Station late Friday (Feb.17) whereas a cosmonaut snapped photographs of it searching for indicators of injury.
The Progress spacecraft, often called Progress 82 by NASA and Progress MS-21 by Russia’s Roscosmos space company, forged off from the space station’s Poisk module at 9:26 p.m. EST (0226 GMT) after practically 4 months on the orbiting lab. Its departure got here seven days after Roscosmos engineers reported a coolant leak on the uncrewed Progress ship on Feb. 11, prompting astronauts and cosmonauts to conduct a photograph inspection of the craft with a robotic arm for indicators of injury.
“The reason for the coolant leak is continuing to be investigated between our NASA specialists and Roscosmos counterparts,” Jeff Arend, the supervisor of NASA’s International Space Station engineering and integration workplace on the Johnson Space Center in Houston, advised reporters in a briefing Friday. “An inspection was completed earlier this week using the Canadarm2 to gather imagery of the suspected area and the teams are evaluating that imagery.”
Related: Russia releases 1st photos of damage to leaky Soyuz spacecraft
After Progress 82 undocked from the station, cosmonauts on the station commanded the ship to rotate 180 levels so they may snap extra imagery of the leaky spacecraft.
“After undocking from the Poisk module of the International Space Station, the outer surface of the Progress MS-21 cargo spacecraft was surveyed. No visual damage was found,” Roscosmos officers wrote in a Telegram update (opens in new tab) translated by Google.
Roscosmos initially deliberate to deorbit the disposable Progress 82 cargo ship late Friday night time. But after its undocking, officers debated extra choices for the spacecraft, together with doubtlessly redocking it to the station’s Russian-built Prichal module for added inspections.
Ultimately, the company opted to eliminate the cargo ship over the South Pacific Ocean as deliberate. “The inclusion of the Progress MS-21 engine for deceleration to deorbit is scheduled for February 19 at 06:15 Moscow time. As a result, the ship will enter the atmosphere and collapse,” Roscosmos wrote in a subsequent Telegram post (opens in new tab).
The coolant leak on Progress 82 is the second since December on a Russian spacecraft on the International Space Station and occurred simply after the arrival of its replacement cargo ship Progress 83 final week. It adopted a coolant leak on the Soyuz MS-22 capsule on Dec. 14 that left three station crewmembers — two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut — with out a car to return dwelling.
Roscosmos engineers have decided {that a} micrometeroid impact likely caused the coolant leak on the Soyuz crew capsule, however the reason for the Progress 82 leak has but to be decided. Roscosmos initially deliberate to launch a substitute Soyuz for the stranded crewmembers (cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio) on Feb. 20. That launch was delayed to March after the invention of the Progress 82 coolant leak.
“The launch date of the uncrewed Soyuz MS-23 replacement spacecraft to the International Space Station is under review,” NASA wrote in a Feb. 15 update (opens in new tab).
Arend mentioned the Progress 82 cargo ship’s coolant leak affected the cargo ship’s autonomous avionics methods that management the spacecraft, however it ought to be capable to deorbit safely.
“Our Russian colleagues have done assessments of how long they can operate that vehicle without cooling and we’re well within limits,” Arend mentioned. “So we think all of the avionics will operate as planned and there has been no impact to the propulsion system at all.”
“We’re very confident that the control of the vehicle will be nominal,” he added.
Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or comply with him @tariqjmalik. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.
