A few hours ago, the Progress MS-21 spacecraft docked with the International Space Station in the mission also referred to as Progress 82 or 82P. The Russian cargo spacecraft blasted off last Wednesday, October 26, Russian time, carries food, water, scientific experiments, fuel, and various hardware.
The Progress MS-21 cargo spacecraft docked with the International Space Station’s Russian Poisk module. Today, the crew will probably proceed with the hatch opening and the procedures to make it an appendage to the Station. The Progress MS-21’s primary mission is accomplished. In fact, it can’t return to Earth, so it will be filled with pieces of hardware that are faulty or have become unusable for some reason and assorted garbage and will disintegrate coming back to the Earth’s atmosphere.
The Progress MS-21 space freighter is scheduled to remain docked with the International Space Station for over six months. The date for its departure will be set later this year by the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
The components of the interface that will be used to connect some large instruments to the Russian Nauka module transported on the Progress MS-21 space freighter will be installed during a spacewalk. They’ll be added to the components that were already installed during last summer after they arrived on a previous Progress cargo spacecraft.
Despite the tensions between Russia and the other partners in the management of the International Space Station, a recent statement indicate that cosmonauts will be sent into orbit at least until 2027. This means that work on expanding the use of the Nauka module as a laboratory can continue for a long time to come.
The programs announced by the Russian space agency Roscosmos must always be taken with a grain of salt because the facts show that those are declarations of intent. The first announcements regarding a new national space station built by Russia date back several years ago but the years of delay accumulated with the sending of the Nauka module into orbit lead to skepticism. As a matter of fact, work continues on the Nauka module waiting to understand if and when it will really be “recycled” to make it part of the Russian space station.
