News

July 28, 2013.
Unmanned transport cargo vehicle Progress M-20M has docked to the International Space Station!

Russian unmanned transport cargo vehicle (TCV) Progress M-20M docked to the International Space Station (ISS).

Once the transport cargo vehicle had been injected into orbit, 5 hours 41 minutes later, the initial contact with the docking port of the ISS Russian Segment (RS) Pirs Module occurred at 06:26 Moscow Time (as foreseen in its nominal mission program).

TCV approach to the space station, its fly-around, stationkeeping and docking were performed in the backup automatic mode during the first 4 orbits, the transport cargo vehicle docked to the space station in the fifth orbit.

The crew of Expedition 36 to ISS working onboard the space station monitored the process of rendezvous and docking. All dynamic operations were performed under supervision of the Technical Manager for flight tests of manned space systems, RSC Energia President and General Designer V.A. Lopota.

Present at the Mission Control Center near Moscow (MCC-M) during final operations of the space vehicle rendezvous and docking to the ISS were: representatives of State Commission, Roscosmos, ESA, NASA, subcontractor companies and organizations in the industry, managers and specialists of the Corporation.

Flight Director is V.A. Solovyov, first Deputy General Designer of RSC Energia.

According to telemetry data and reports from the ISS crew, onboard systems of the space vehicle and the station operate normally.

For reference:

TCV delivered to the station about 2,4 tons of cargo, including Olympic torch of Winter Olympic Games Sochi-2014; 112 kg of cargoes for US Segment of the station and 136 kg of US cargoes for Russian cosmonauts.

ISS Russian Segment content: Functional and cargo module Zarya, Service Module Zvezda, docking compartment/module Pirs, Mini Research Modules Poisk and Rassvet, manned space vehicles Soyuz TMA-08M, Soyuz TMA-09M, cargo transport space vehicle Progress M-20M. European cargo space vehicle ATV-4 is attached to instrumentation and propulsion compartment of Service Module Zvezda.

TCV Progress M-20M was attached to Pirs Module, wherefrom TCV Progress M-19M was undocked at 00:44 Moscow Time on July 26, 2013 completing its flight on the same day over pre-set area of World ocean after its taking away from the orbit.

ISS crew consists of: Russian Cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov (ISS Commander), Alexandr Misurkin and Fyodor Yurchikhin; US Astronauts Christopher Cassidy and Karen Nyberg, astronaut of European Space Agency Luca Parmitano.