A Russian Soyuz rocket blasted off Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, boosting a Progress resupply ship into orbit in pursuit of the Worldwide House Station with greater than 5,500 kilos of cargo, gas, water, and air.
The Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifted off from the Website 31 launch complicated at Baikonur at 1:15:36 a.m. EST (0615:36 GMT) Thursday to kick off a two-day flight to the house station. The three-stage Soyuz rocket launched the Progress MS-22 provide ship into orbit about 9 minutes into the mission, then the cargo freighter unfurled photo voltaic arrays and navigation antennas.
A sequence of orbit-raising engine firings will culminate within the ship’s automated docking to the rear port of the station’s Zvezda service module at 3:49 a.m. EST (0849 GMT) Saturday.
Russian cosmonauts on the station, a part of the lab’s seven-person crew, will open hatches to start unpacking cargo from the pressurized cabin of the Progress spacecraft.
One other cargo ship, Progress MS-20, undocked from the Zvezda module Feb. 6 (U.S. time) to move for a disposal burn and re-entry again into the ambiance after an eight-month mission. The Progress MS-20 spacecraft was anticipated to largely deplete throughout re-entry over the distant Pacific Ocean.
The departure of the Progress MS-20 spacecraft cleared the best way for the arrival of the brand new Progress provide ship Saturday.
In the meantime, Russian floor crews at Baikonur rolled the Soyuz rocket from its integration hangar to its launch pad Feb. 6. A hydraulic erector raised the rocket vertical on the Website 31 launch complicated for ultimate liftoff preparations, and gantry arms enclosed the Soyuz launcher to supply technicians with entry to totally different components of the car.
Russian managers met a number of hours earlier than launch to approve loading of kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants into the Soyuz rocket. The gantry arms on the launch pad retracted away from the rocket within the ultimate hour of the countdown, and floor crews at Baikonur inserted the launch key right into a management panel about six minutes earlier than liftoff.
Propellant tanks on the launcher pressurized starting about two-and-a-half minutes previous to liftoff, and engines on the core stage and strap-on boosters ignited and ramped as much as full energy to propel the Soyuz off the pad with greater than 900,000 kilos of thrust.
The Soyuz rocket headed northeast from Baikonur to line up with the flight path of the house station. The launcher’s 4 first stage boosters jettisoned two minutes into the flight, adopted a minute later at T+plus 3 minutes and three seconds by jettison of the aerodynamic nostril cone to disclose the Progress provide ship to the surroundings of house.
The Soyuz core stage, often known as the second stage, shut down and separated practically 5 minutes after launch. A 3rd stage RD-0110 engine ignited to complete the job of accelerating the Progress cargo freighter to orbital velocity, then deployed the availability ship virtually 9 minutes into the mission.
The Progress MS-22 mission is called Progress 83P within the house station’s schedule of visiting autos. It’s the 83rd Russian Progress resupply mission to launch to the Worldwide House Station.
Russia’s house company mentioned the Progress MS-22 cargo ship carries 5,586 kilos (2,534 kilograms) of provides and gas to the house station. Right here’s a breakdown of the cargo manifest from Roscosmos, the Russian house company:
• 2,985 kilos (1,354 kilograms) of dry cargo
• 1,587 kilos (720 kilograms) of liquid propellant to refuel the Zvezda service module
• 926 kilos (420 kilograms) of contemporary water
• 88 kilos (40 kilograms) of air
The dry cargo contains meals and clothes for the house station crew members, medical gear, and experiments. The Russian provide ship may also reboost the orbital altitude of the station, and carry out any required burns to steer the complicated out of the trail of house junk.
The launch Thursday was the primary of as much as 20 Soyuz rocket missions Russian plans in 2023, in keeping with Roscosmos. The following Soyuz launch is ready for Feb. 19 (U.S. time) from Baikonur with a Russian Soyuz crew ferry ship, which can take off and head for the house station with none cosmonauts aboard to interchange a broken Soyuz spacecraft docked on the complicated.
The broken Soyuz spacecraft leaked all of its coolant into house after an influence from a suspected tiny micrometeoroid in December, and Russian officers determined to launch the following Soyuz transport with no crew aboard. The brand new Soyuz will change the broken spacecraft, and shall be used later this 12 months for the return to Earth of two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. astronaut.
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