Watch Russian cargo ship arrive at space station early Saturday

February 10, 2023

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A robotic Russian cargo craft will arrive on the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) early Saturday morning (Feb. 11), and you may watch the motion dwell.

The robotic Progress 83 freighter is scheduled to dock with the station at 3:49 a.m. EST (0849 GMT) on Saturday, ending a two-day orbital chase.

Watch the off-Earth rendezvous dwell right here at Area.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency (opens in new tab). Protection will start at 3 a.m. EST (0800 GMT).

Associated: How Russia’s Progress spaceships work (infographic)

Russia’s robotic Progress 80 cargo spacecraft approaches the Worldwide Area Station on Feb. 17, 2022. (Picture credit score: NASA TV)

Progress 83 launched atop a Soyuz rocket from the Russia-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan early Thursday morning (Feb. 9), carrying practically 3 tons of meals, scientific gear and {hardware} towards the International Space Station.

The freighter will dock Saturday with the rear port of the Zvezda module, on the Russian aspect of the ISS. Cosmonauts Dmitri Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev, who instructions the present Expedition 68 mission aboard the orbiting lab, will monitor Progress 83’s automated strategy.

“Afterward, the duo will look ahead to the strain to equalize between the cargo craft and the station earlier than opening the hatches and transferring the six-month provide of cargo,” NASA officers wrote in an update on Friday (opens in new tab) (Feb. 10).

Petelin, Prokopyev and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio arrived on the ISS in September 2022 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. That automobile lost all of its coolant after an obvious micrometeoroid strike in December 2022, rendering it unfit to hold astronauts again to Earth besides in case of emergency.

Russia’s federal space company Roscosmos will launch an uncrewed Soyuz towards the ISS on Feb. 19 to function the trio’s new trip again to Earth. Their homecoming will likely be delayed significantly, nevertheless, from the unique March date that was deliberate to the late September timeframe, NASA officers have stated.

Petelin, Prokopyev and Rubio are at present sharing the ISS with 4 different astronauts, who’re a part of SpaceX’s Crew-5 mission for NASA. Crew-5, which arrived on the ISS in early October 2022, consists of NASA’s Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan’s Koichi Wakata and Anna Kikina of Roscosmos.

The Crew-5 quartet are scheduled to return to Earth subsequent month.

Mike Wall is the writer of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a e-book in regards to the seek for alien life. Comply with him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).