MOSCOW, March 17. /TASS/. The International Space Station (ISS) has been put into higher orbit to prepare for the docking and departure of Soyuz spacecraft, Russia’s state-run space corporation Roscosmos said.

"Today, the orbit of the International Space Station was adjusted with the help of Progress MS-30 engines in order to ensure the launch of the Soyuz MS-27 manned spacecraft and the landing of the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft, scheduled for April 2025," the space corporation said in a statement.

The thrusters of Russia’s Progress MS-30 spacecraft were activated at 7:00 p.m. Moscow time (4:00 p.m. GMT), running for a total of 533 seconds. As a result, the space station’s average altitude was raised by 1.8 km, to 417.9 km above the Earth’s surface.

Currently, the ISS crew comprises Russian cosmonauts Ivan Vagner (TASS special correspondent aboard the ISS), Alexey Ovchinin, Alexander Gorbunov and Kirill Peskov; NASA astronauts Donald Pettit, Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Nick Hague, Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams; as well as Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi.