July 25, 2012
In accordance with the program of work on the THC Progress M-15M 24 July 2012. were scheduled to rendezvous and re-cargo vehicle docked with the International Space Station in order to develop an advanced approach "Course-ON."
The process of docking of Progress M-15M on the part of long-stand-alone approach proceeded normally. Then, in 04 hours 22 minutes 04 seconds Moscow time, while in the 161 km from the station, traffic control system "Course-ON" THC Progress M-15M team was formed to ban future operations, in connection with which the convergence has been suspended .
The Russian Progress M-15M spacecraft is seen backing away from the International Space Station’s Pirs module Sunday. An attempt to re-dock with the station Monday was aborted when a new navigation system encountered a failure. (Credit:NASA TV).
The Progress M-15M spacecraft was undocked from the station’s Pirs module Sunday afternoon and directed to back away to a distance of about 100 miles. The goal of the exercise was to test a new KURS rendezvous antenna that is designed to replace three antennas currently used by approaching Progress and manned Soyuz spacecraft to “lock on” to space station navigation beacons.
Autonomous flight of the Progress M-15M
But Monday evening, with the Progress M-15M spacecraft at a distance of about nine miles from the station, the approach was aborted by the craft’s flight computer around 8:23 p.m. EDT. Experts analyze the operational control of the situation, make recommendations on the continuation of work and control the flight of cargo vehicle.
Currently, the average height of 408.1 km orbit of the truck, and its distance from the station is 484 km. The circumstances are not an obstacle to joining the Japanese cargo spacecraft HTV-3, scheduled for July 27.
Japanese cargo spacecraft HTV-3
Further work on the docking of "Progress" from the International Space Station will continue after the docking of a Japanese cargo spacecraft HTV-3.
Original text in Russian: http://www.federalspace.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=19344
Images, Text, Credits: Press-service of Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos PAO) and the TsNIIMash / NASA TV / JAXA / Translation: Orbiter.ch.
Greetings, Orbiter.ch
