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04Apr19

Russian resupply ship launches to orbital outpost using ultra-short scheme

A Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with a Progress MS-11 space freighter has blasted off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Russia's Flight Control Center announced on Thursday.

"The Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with the Progress MS-11 resupply ship has blasted off from Site No. 31 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome," the Flight Control Center said.

The resupply ship will make a flight using an ultra-short scheme. The Progress is set to dock with the orbital outpost at 5:25 p.m. Moscow time.

The space freighter will deliver two tonnes of various cargoes to the space station, in particular, fuel, scientific equipment, foodstuffs and medicines.

New flight scheme

The ultra-short flight scheme envisages a spacecraft's two rotations around Earth. Before July 2018, Russia's Progress spaceships blasted off to the ISS either under the two-day scheme (34 rotations around the planet) or it took them six hours to reach the space station (four rotations).

Russia used the ultra-short scheme of flight to the space station during the launch of a Progress MS-09 resupply ship, which successfully reached the orbital outpost on July 10, 2018 in slightly more than three hours and a half. The next spacecraft, the Progress MS-10, again flew to the ISS on November 16, 2018 using the old two-day scheme, as this was the first launch of a Soyuz-FG carrier rocket after the October 11, 2018 faulty liftoff.

[Source: Itar Tass, Korolyov, Moscow Region, 04Apr19]
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