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International Space Station’s orbit to be raised by 600 meters

According to preliminary calculated data, the maneuver will increase the medium height of the ISS’s flight orbit by 600 meters to 404.4 km

MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/. The medium height of the International Space Station’s flight orbit will be raised by 600 meters with the help of the engines of the Zvezda module on January 17, Russia’s Mission Control said on Friday.

"The propulsion system of the Zvezda module will work for 22 seconds. According to preliminary calculated data, the maneuver will increase the medium height of the ISS’s flight orbit by 600 meters to 404.4 km," Mission Control said.

Meanwhile Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos has said the Zvezda module will switch on its engines at 23:15 Moscow time on January 17.

"The adjustment aims to create ballistic conditions for bringing a Progress-MS-08 resupply ship into orbit," Roscosmos sad.

The space freighter’s launch is scheduled for February 11, 2018. It was earlier reported that the Progress MS-08 resupply ship would be the first cargo spacecraft to fly to the ISS using a two-rotation scheme (a three-hour travel from the blastoff to the docking with the space station).

It was originally planned that a Progress MS-07 cargo spacecraft would for the first time perform its flight to the world’s sole orbiter under a three-hour scheme (two revolutions around the Earth’s orbit) but finally the flight was carried out under a two-day scheme.

Executive Director for Manned Space Flights at the State Space Corporation Roscosmos Sergei Krikalyov earlier told TASS that a micro-computer glitch had been behind a decision to reschedule the launch of Russia’s Progress MS-07 resupply ship from October 12 to October 14 but did not elaborate on this issue.

He said that the faulty micro-computer had been replaced.