Russia Fails to Raise Space Station’s Orbit
MOSCOW — A Russian space transport ship failed to fully raise the orbit of the International Space Station in preparation for next month’s docking of a supply ship, a Russian news agency reported Wednesday.
Alexander Kireyev, head of the ballistic coordination group at Russia’s Mission Control outside Moscow, said the docked Progress transport ship was supposed to raise the orbiting station by about 2.8 miles, but the ship’s engines were not strong enough.
"Eight approach and attitude engines of Progress M-50 that is docked to the ISS were turned on at 17:12 Moscow time and worked for 549 seconds as was planned," Kireyev was quoted as saying by ITAR-Tass. "However, the thrust they generated was not as big as was expected."
He said the station was raised by only 1.68 miles, but that it would still be enough to allow a new transport ship, scheduled to be launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Dec. 23, to dock.
Kireyev said specialists were investigating what went wrong.
The station, which is now orbiting about 222 miles above the earth, has dropped about 4.3 miles in the past two weeks due to strong magnetic storms.
Russian Soyuz spacecraft and Progress cargo ships have provided the only link with the 16-nation space station since the United States grounded its shuttle fleet after Columbia broke apart over Texas on Feb. 1, 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board.
Last month, a two-man Russian-American crew arrived on the station for a six-month stint.
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