MOSCOW, August 21 Progress MS-22 cargo spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station, where it spent more than six months. This is evidenced by the broadcast of Roskosmos.
The ship «set sail» from the service module «Zvezda» of the Russian segment of the ISS. At 05.58, it will turn on the propulsion system for braking, after which it will descend from orbit, enter the atmosphere and collapse.
According to the Mission Control Center of the Central Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering, unburned structural elements of the ship will fall in the non-navigable area of the South Pacific Ocean.
Progress MS-22 was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on February 9, 2023 on a Soyuz-2.1a rocket, and two days later it delivered more than 2.5 tons of cargo to the ISS. With the help of the ship's engines, ten corrections of the station's orbit were made.
It is assumed that a new Progress MS-24 truck will dock on the vacated spot in four days. Also, Progress MS-23, which arrived on May 24, remains in the station.
The previous ship «Progress MS-21» was sunk according to a non-standard scheme. Shortly before undocking on February 18, the thermoregulation system depressurized, so the astronauts from the station first photographed the damaged areas of the departed spacecraft. After analysis, the experts decided to send the ship under water a day after undocking.
Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopiev, Dmitry Petelin and Andrey Fedyaev, NASA astronauts Francisco Rubio, Steven Bowen and Woody Hoburg, UAE astronaut Sultana al-Neyadi are currently working at the station.