15.09 Space Stations Orbit to Be Raised Ahead of Crew Arrival
MOSCOW, September 15 (RIA Novosti) The orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) will be raised on Sunday by nearly one kilometer to ensure safe docking of a Russian spacecraft with new crew members, a spokesman for the Russian space agency said.
Russias mission control center will adjust the ISS orbit by switching on thrusters of Europes Europes ATV-4 Albert Einstein resupply spacecraft currently docked with the station.
"Thrusters of the European spacecraft will be started at 16:42 Moscow time [12:42 GMT] on Sunday and will remain switched on for 204.22 seconds, giving the station a boost of 0.5 meters per second. As a result, the average altitude of the ISS will be increased by approximately 900 meters (29.5 feet), to 418.8 kilometers (260 miles), the spokesman said.
Such adjustments are carried out regularly to compensate for the Earth's gravity and to facilitate the successful docking and undocking of spacecraft.
