A Russian area vessel carrying an algae experiment, long-duration medical examinations and hundreds of kilos of different cargo and provides docked safely on the International Space Station Wednesday (Feb. 17).
The Russian Progress MS-16 cargo ship (also referred to as Progress 77) met up with the orbiting advanced at 1:27 a.m. EST (0627 GMT), when it latched onto the station’s Pirs docking part, in response to an replace from NASA. It had launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sunday (Feb. 14).
Progress 77 introduced 5,424 lbs. (2,460 kg) of provides and cargo to the Expedition 64 crew. The supply included new analysis experiments, crew provides (corresponding to clothes and meals), recent water, nitrogen gasoline and propellant for the station’s Zvezda service module propulsion system.
Video: Watch Russia’s Progress 77 cargo ship blast off
Related: How Russia’s Progress cargo ships work (infographic)
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The spacecraft can even play a historic function when leaving the area station later this 12 months. NASA mentioned that when it’s time, Progress won’t undock as earlier missions have; as an alternative, it would stay related to Pirs and pull your entire docking compartment away from the ISS for a deliberate destruction in Earth’s environment. Pirs has been in service for nearly 20 years and a alternative is coming quickly, NASA mentioned.
“Pirs’ departure from the space station is scheduled to take place just days after the launch of the ‘Nauka’ multipurpose laboratory module on a Proton rocket from Baikonur,” NASA said in a statement. “The multifunctional docking port and research facility will dock automatically to the port vacated by Pirs.”
Related: Cosmonauts prep space station for module removal on spacewalk out of new airlock
NASA was unable to hold a dwell video of the docking on NASA Television — which it sometimes tries to do — due to ongoing energy outages in Texas affecting company personnel and related broadcast capabilities, NASA said in an update prior to the event. A extreme winter storm Sunday (Feb. 14) knocked out electrical energy to thousands and thousands of Texans, with 3.6 million properties and companies nonetheless at the hours of darkness in subfreezing temperatures as of Tuesday (Feb. 16), CNN said.
Russia’s Progress 77 spacecraft docked on the station’s Pirs docking compartment immediately at 1:27am ET delivering 1.1 tons of nitrogen, water and propellant to the station. More… https://t.co/S3aIp51Fsg pic.twitter.com/BHezoE9EG9February 17, 2021
A couple of experiments have been bundled into the Progress supply, together with the next ones listed on the Energia website (Energia is the prime developer and contractor of the Russian crewed spaceflight program):
- Neurolab kits for medical experiments meant to look at the impacts of long-duration spaceflight on Russian cosmonauts;
- An experiment known as Aseptic, which can “make it possible to develop sterility provisions while performing biological experiments under spaceflight conditions”, in response to Energia;
- A photobioreactor which can look at how potential it’s to supply meals and oxygen from algae in microgravity, which is also helpful for long-duration area missions;
- Hardware known as Cascad, which can research manufacturing of cell cultures in microgravity;
- An experiment known as Biodegradation, which can look at microorganisms within the area station’s environment to see how they have an effect on structural supplies.
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