MOSCOW, June 11 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian cargo spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday for a weeklong flight to study the operation of its liquid-propellant engines in the ionosphere, which spans from 50 to 250 miles above the Earth’s surface.
The Progress M-19M, which arrived at the space station on April 26 with over 2.5 tons of cargo – including food, water and oxygen for the crew – will be deorbited after the research is concluded on June 19 and “buried” in the Pacific Ocean, Russian space officials said.
The Progress’s departure also freed up a docking port so that the European ATV-4 cargo craft, which blasted off from the Kourou space center in French Guiana on June 5, can arrive at the ISS on June 15.
The launch of the next Russian cargo spacecraft, Progress M-20M, is scheduled for July 28 from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, according to sources in the Russian space industry.
