MOSCOW, January 17. /TASS/. The medium height of the International Space Station’s (ISS) flight orbit was raised by 400 meters with the help of the engines of the Zvezda module on Wednesday, Russia’s Mission Control told TASS.
"The propulsion system of the Zvezda module has worked for 16 seconds. According to preliminary calculated data, the maneuver has increased the medium height of the ISS’s flight orbit by 0.4 kilometer to 404.3 km," Mission Control said.
The engines of the ISS module were switched on at 23.15 Moscow time. The adjustment aimed to create ballistic conditions for bringing a Progress-MS-08 resupply ship into orbit. The space freighter’s launch is scheduled for 11 February 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 fly to the world’s sole orbiter under a three-hour scheme (two revolutions around the Earth’s orbit). The launch was scheduled for 12 October 2017, but because of a micro-computer glitch the launch of the Progress MS-07 was rescheduled to October 14. The flight was eventually carried out under a two-day scheme.