The head of the ballistics Department of the Rocket and Space Corporation, Rafail Murtazin, said that experts will prepare the conditions for conducting a four-turn approach scheme of Progress MS-20 and against its background will work out the elements of a single-turn scheme
MOSCOW, February 6. /tass/. Specialists will continue to work out a single-turn flight scheme to the International Space Station (ISS) during the launch of the Progress MS-20 cargo ship in the summer of 2022. This was reported to TASS by the head of the ballistics department of the Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (part of Roscosmos), Rafail Murtazin.
"We will prepare the conditions for carrying out a four-turn convergence scheme of Progress MS-20 and against its background we will work out the elements of a single-turn scheme," Murtazin said.
The ballistics expert explained that at the final stage of the rendezvous, the spacecraft will be launched into a coelliptic orbit, and at a given moment an impulse will be executed to move into the ISS orbit along the optimal Homan trajectory. "The flight will allow us to confirm our calculations before the final transition to a single-turn scheme," the expert added.
In April 2019, RSC Energia spoke about the development of a single-turn scheme for spacecraft rendezvous with the ISS. Then the RSC press service noted that it could be implemented in two to three years. The elements of the single-turn approach scheme to the ISS were worked out during the flight of the Progress MS-17 cargo transport ship last summer.
In December 2021, Roscosmos CEO Dmitry Rogozin, during a conversation with cosmonauts, announced that single-turn flights on spacecraft to the ISS would begin soon.