Russian transport ship Progress turns into research laboratory

MOSCOW. October 26. KAZINFORM The Russian transport ship Progress that undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday, October 25, has turned into a research laboratory; Kazinform refers to Itar-Tass.

"Progress M-05M that undocked from the station at 18:25 Moscow time will be used for a geophysical experiment for three weeks," Mission Control Centre spokesman Valery Lyndin told Itar-Tass.

Some fuel was left in the ship's tanks to keep it going for three weeks. After the end of the experiment, the ship will be disposed of in the Pacific.

The docking module Pirs, to which the transport ship was moored for almost six months, won't stay vacant long: the next transport ship, Progress M-08M, will dock to it on October 30. The ship is scheduled to blast off on October 27.

Progress M-05M carrying 2.5 tonnes of cargoes was orbited on May 1. The docking of the freighter with the ISS caused some problems. It was initially to dock with the ISS in an autonomous mode, but when it was about one kilometre away from the station, the automatic rendezvous mode failed due to an engine malfunction. Cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, who was the ISS commander at that time, brought the freighter to the docking module Pirs manually.

Almost all transport ships have been used as orbital laboratories since the autumn of 2007. "This practice will continue," the Mission Control Centre said.