Russian Cargo Spacecraft Progress MS-26 Completes Mission
Progress MS-26. Photo: NASA
August 13, 2024 Hour: 7:52 am
It was launched via a Soyuz-2.1a rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Feb. 15, 2024
On Tuesday, Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos said that the cargo spacecraft Progress MS-26 undocked from the International Space Station (ISS), deorbited and sunk in the Pacific Ocean.
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“Today, the Progress MS-26 cargo ship, which spent six months as part of the ISS, deorbited, entered the dense layers of the atmosphere and collapsed,” Roscosmos announced.
The spacecraft detached from the Service Module Zvezda at 5:00 a.m. Moscow time (0200 GMT) on Tuesday. At 8:09 a.m. (0509 GMT), its propulsion system was activated to initiate deorbiting, and it burned for over three minutes. Half an hour later, the spacecraft entered the Earth’s atmosphere.
Earlier Tuesday, Roscosmos expected the remaining non-combustible elements of the spacecraft to fall at 8:49 a.m. Moscow time (0549 GMT) in a non-navigational area of the Pacific Ocean.
Progress MS-26 was launched via a Soyuz-2.1a rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Feb. 15, 2024. It docked with the station on Feb. 17 and has been part of it since then.
During its mission, the spacecraft delivered water, fuel, medical supplies, clothing, food and equipment to the ISS for scientific experiments. Its propulsion system made six orbital corrections of the ISS.
On Aug. 17, the Progress MS-28 will dock with the Zvezda module of the ISS following its launch from Baikonur on Aug. 15.
teleSUR/ JF Source: Xinhua