Space station’s orbit raised ahead of Soyuz MS-27 crewed spacecraft launch
The orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) was raised by more than 3 km ahead of the launch of the Soyuz MS-27 crewed spacecraft and the return of the Soyuz MS-26 capsule to Earth, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos said on Thursday, TASS reports.
"Today the orbit of the International Space Station has been adjusted to provide conditions for the launch of the Soyuz MS-27 manned spacecraft and the landing of the Soyuz MS-26 scheduled for April 2025," Roscosmos said in a statement.
According to preliminary data, the orbit’s average altitude was raised by 3.4 km to 419 km above the Earth’s surface. The maneuver was performed using the thrusters of the Progress MS-28 space freighter docked to the ISS. The thrusters were activated at 4:30 a.m. Moscow time and operated for 1,341.2 seconds, it said.
Currently, Roscosmos cosmonauts Ivan Vagner (a TASS special reporter in orbit), Aleksey Ovchinin and Aleksandr Gorbunov, NASA astronauts Donald Pettit and Nick Hague and their teammates Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams who arrived at the ISS as part of the Boeing Starliner first crewed launch are working aboard the orbital outpost.
Roscosmos Executive Director for Human Spaceflights Sergey Krikalyov told TASS in January that the launch of the Soyuz MS-27 crewed spacecraft to the International Space Station was scheduled for April. The Soyuz MS-26 crew (Ovchinin, Vagner, Pettit) expected to return to Earth on April 1 would stay in orbit longer to allow for a changeover at the orbital outpost.
As written before, Baikonur Cosmodrome eyes 9 launches according to its schedule for 2025.
