In order to form initial ballistic conditions before the launch of the transport piloted ship “Union of MS-19” and the landing of the Soyuz MS-18 “on May 20, 2021, the next correction of the height of the orbit of the International Space Station is planned.
According to the calculated data of the service of ballistic-navigation support of the Center for Flight Management TsNIIMASH (part of the state corporation “Roskosmos”), at 20:01 Moscow time in automatic mode, the engines of the MS-16 Transport Cargo ship will be included in the automatic mode, which will work 180 seconds, and the impulse will be 0.2 m / s. After this maneuver, the average height of the ISS will increase by 350 meters and will be 419.72 km.
Upon completion of the corrective maneuver, the orbit parameters of the International Space Station will pre-make:
- Couch period: 92.91 min;
- orbit: 51.66 degrees;
- Minimum orbit height: 417.73 km;
- Maximum Orbit Height: 438.22 km.
Currently, on board the International Space Station, the 65th crew is operating in the astronauts of Roscosmos Oleg Novitsky and Peter Dubrov and Astronaut NASA Mark Vanda Haya, arriving on April 9, 2021 on the Soyuz MS-18 ship, as well as crew members Crew Dragon Ship – NASA Astronauts Shane Cybrou and Megan Macarutur, Astronaut of the European Space Agency Space and Astronaut of the Japanese Aerospace Research Akihiko Hoshide Agency.