MOSCOW, August 21. /TASS/. Unburnt elements of the structure of the Progress MS-22 cargo spacecraft have been scuttled in the Pacific, Roscosmos reported on Monday.
"Today, the Progress MS-22 was deorbited. It entered the atmosphere and ended up in a non-navigable area of the South Pacific," Russia’s state-run space corporation said.
The cargo craft undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) at 2:50 a.m. Moscow time on Monday before launching a free-flight.
The Progress MS-22 has been docked at the ISS since February 11 when it delivered more than 2.5 metric tons of cargo to the space station. Over the period, the cargo ship carried out evasion maneuvers three times to protect the ISS from space debris and readjusted the orbit seven times as scheduled.
Next week, the Progress MS-24 cargo spacecraft will dock at the ISS instead of the Progress MS-22. The launch of the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with the Progress MS-24 is scheduled from the Baikonur cosmodrome on August 23. It is expected to reach the ISS in two days’ time.