MOSCOW, November 8. /TASS/. The medium altitude of the International Space Station’s (ISS) flight orbit has been raised by 800 meters with the help of the engines of the Progress MS-12 cargo spaceship docked to the station, a spokesman for the Central Research Institute of Machine-Building (TsNIImash) that is in charge of the Mission Control Center, told TASS on Friday.
"The maneuver was carried out with the help of the engines of the Progress MS-12 cargo spaceship. The engines operated for a due period of time," the spokesman said, adding that the ISS’ orbit had been raised by 800 meters, to 416.6 kilometers.
"The orbit adjustment maneuver was geared to create ballistic conditions for the flight of Russian cargo spaceships, namely for de-orbiting of the cargo spacecraft Progress MS-12 and docking of the Progress MS-13 to the Russian segment of the ISS," the spokesman reported.
A source in the Russian space sector told TASS earlier that the Progress MS-12 unmanned resupply spacecraft, which had been docked to the International Space Station (ISS) since July 31, would undock from the station on November 29 to be ditched in the non-navigational area of the Pacific Ocean on the same day.
The launch of the next resupply spaceship, the Progress MS-13, was rescheduled from December 6 to December 1, Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos told TASS earlier. It would be blasted off by a Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket from the Baikonur spaceport.
The previous orbit adjustment maneuver was performed on September 14, 2019, when the ISS’ orbit was raised by 1.05 kilometers to create ballistic conditions for the landing of the Soyuz MS-12 manned spaceship on October 3.