The elements of the single-turn rendezvous scheme with the International Space Station (ISS) were worked out during the flight of the Progress MS-17 spacecraft on July 2. This was announced on Monday, July 12, by Roscosmos.
"During the implementation of the autonomous flight program of the spacecraft, the specialists of the S. P. Korolev RSC Energia began working out elements of a promising single-turn scheme for autonomous rendezvous with the ISS under the control of the main operational group of the RS Mission Control Center (Russian segment-ed.) ISS, " the corporation said in a message on Twitter.
It is noted that such an ultra-fast approach scheme allows the ships to reach the ISS in just 90-120 minutes after launch.
On July 2, the Progress MS-17 transport cargo ship docked to the Poisk module of the International Space Station. The docking process was carried out automatically under the supervision of specialists from the TsNIIMash Mission Control Center and cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov, who are on the ISS.
On June 30, the Soyuz-2.1 a rocket successfully coped with the task of launching the Progress MS-17 spacecraft with cargo for the ISS into near-Earth orbit. The rocket was launched on the same day from the Baikonur cosmodrome. This is the second launch of a Russian cargo ship this year.
In July last year, the Soyuz-2.1 a carrier rocket with the Progress MS-15 cargo ship was launched to the ISS from the Baikonur cosmodrome. The docking with the International Space Station took about 3 hours and 20 minutes. The flight took place according to an ultra-fast two-turn scheme. Before it, either a standard two-day scheme was used, or a shortened six-hour one.