A few hours ago, the Progress MS-18 spacecraft docked with the International Space Station in the mission also referred to as Progress 79 or 79P. The Russian cargo spacecraft, which blasted off last Wednesday, October 27, carries food, water, scientific experiments, fuel, and various hardware.

The Progress MS-18 cargo spacecraft docked with the International Space Station’s Russian Zvezda module. Today, the crew will probably proceed with the hatch opening and the procedures to make it an appendage to the Station. The first mission of the Progress MS-18 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.

Normally, the procedures for opening a cargo spacecraft’s hatch are routine as much as operations in space can be easy. In this case, however, the Progress MS-18 docked with the International Space Station’s Zvezda module, where an air leak was discovered right next to the hatch. That’s a small leak but the compartment was sealed in April 2021 after the Progress MS-14 cargo spacecraft departed the International Space Station. Now, that compartment will be reopened to access the newly arrived cargoes but there will be extra caution by the cosmonauts in checking the air status in the Zvezda module.

A small air leak may seem like a minor problem but there’s always a risk that the damage that caused it will get worse. It’s one of the problems the Russians recently had, together with some malfunctions in the systems of their spacecraft, which in a couple of cases required to be manually guided to dock with the International Space Station. In two other cases, unscheduled thruster burns caused a change in the Station’s attitude with the need for more maneuvers to bring it back to normal. The launch of new Station modules with many years of delay is one of the problems being solved. Hopefully, the Prichal module will launch on November 24.