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Russia’s Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft with robot on board starts deorbiting sequence

The capsule is scheduled to land at 00:37 Moscow time on Saturday

© Mikhail Metzel/TASS

MOSCOW, September 6. /TASS/. Engines of Russia’s manned Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft with anthropomorphic robot Fedor on board were switched on to perform a deorbit burn, Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin, who is on board the International Space Station (ISS) said on Friday.

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The uncrewed spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) earlier on Friday. .

"The Soyuz MS-14 engines have been switched on for a retrograde burn," Ovchinin reported to the Mission Control Center in a broadcast aired by NASA.

A group of Russian military helicopters, assisting in the operation to recover the Soyuz MS-14 reentry capsule with Russian anthropomorphic robot Fedor on board, took off late on Friday from the airport of the Kazakh city of Zhezqazghan.

"Mi-8 military transport helicopters took off from the airport of Zhezqazghan and headed to the presumed landing site in the steppe of Kazakhstan. The crews will take specialists of Rosaviatsiya and RSC Energia, as well as required equipment, to the landing site, which is 146 km southeast from Zhezqazghan. The exact coordinates will be transmitted by an An-26 plane, which will detect signals from beams installed on the reentry module," the Central Military District’s press service said in a statement.

The capsule is scheduled to land at 00:37 Moscow time on Saturday.

The search group lists eight Mi-8 helicopters, An-12 and An-26 planes, 20 vehicles (including five PEM-1 ‘Sinyaya Ptitsa’ (Blue Bird) rescue vehicles from the Central Military District) and 130 servicemen.

The test launch of the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket and the Soyuz MS-14 manned spaceship with only FEDOR and cargoes on its board took place on August 22. During the launch, the robot transmitted some telemetric data to the ground, including about the separation of stages.

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