An unmanned Russian cargo spacecraft has a problem with an antenna, so it will have to be manually docked when it reaches the International Space Station (ISS), Russia’s Roscosmos state space corporation said.
A Soyuz-2.1a rocket launched the Progress MS-33 cargo spacecraft on Sunday from Baikonur in Kazakhstan, but a problem with one of the KURS automated rendezvous antennas was identified, Roscosmos said.
Russian cosmonaut Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, the current ISS commander, will manually dock the cargo ship on Tuesday at about 1.35pm GMT, Roscosmos said.
“A manual approach of ships to the ISS is regularly practised by cosmonauts in training,” said Oleg Kononenko, head of Russia’s Cosmonaut Training Centre.
Nasa said all other systems are operating as normal, and Roscosmos will continue troubleshooting the antenna.
The cargo ship is carrying about 2.5 tonnes of food, water, fuel, oxygen and supplies for the crew aboard the ISS.
There are currently seven crew aboard the ISS — Russians Kud-Sverchkov, Sergei Mikayev and Andrei Fedyaev; US astronauts Christopher Williams, Jessica Meir, and Jack Hathaway; and France’s Sophie Adenot.
Reuters
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