MOSCOW, November 29. /TASS/. The Progress MS-23 space freighter will undock from the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday to make room for a new cargo spacecraft, Progress MS-25, Russia’s state-run space corporation Roscosmos told reporters.
The Progress MS-23 resupply vehicle will undock from the Poisk research module of the ISS at 10:55 a.m. Moscow time (7:55 a.m. GMT) and begin an autonomous flight. The spacecraft will fire its engines for a deorbit burn at 2:03 p.m. Moscow time (11:03 a.m. GMT). A few hours after the undocking, the space freighter will burn in the atmosphere almost completely, and the remaining fragments will splash down in non-navigational areas of the Pacific Ocean at approximately 2:43 p.m. Moscow time (11:43 a.m. GMT).
The space freighter docked with the ISS on May 24, delivering almost 2.5 metric tons of cargo to the orbital outpost.
It will be replaced by Progress MS-25, to be launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on December 1. The spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the ISS on December 3.
Currently the ISS has a crew of seven: Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko (TASS special correspondent on the ISS), Nikolay Chub and Konstantin Borisov, NASA astronauts Jasmine Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara, ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen from Denmark, and JAXA astronaut Satoshi Furukawa.
Progress MS is a Russian crewless vehicle, created especially for servicing orbital outposts. It is used to deliver various cargoes (fuel, research equipment, oxygen, water, food and others supplies) to the ISS, as well as to adjust its orbit.