The Russian cargo ship Progress 78 will be leaving the International Space Station in November of 2021, to make room for the Prichal docking module. Anton Shkaplerov has an image credited to him.
A Russian cargo ship left the International Space Station early Thursday to make room for a new docking port.
The Progress 78 cargo ship, also known as ProgressMS17, left the station at 6:22 a.m. It is doomed to explode in Earth's atmosphere. Prichal, a docking port module that was launched to the International Space Station on Wednesday, is now clear to arrive.
The space station is ready to receive a module. The commander of the station, a Russian, wrote on his account after the undocking.
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The Prichal module is a four-ton compartment with six docking ports that will expand the space station's habitable volume by more than 500 square feet. One of the docking ports will be used to link up with the Nauka Multipurpose laboratory on Friday.
The Russian Prichal Node Module and its attached Progress M-UM propulsion stage are in the final stages of preparation for their launch. The image is from the Roscosmos.
Prichal will be used for testing architecture for potentially permanent settlements in space. It is being delivered to the space station by a modified Progress spaceship that will undock from Prichal for its own disposal.
Progress 78 had to clear out before Prichal could dock.
The docking port for the Node Module was vacating when the ProgressMS17 was undocking. The Progress has removed a docking unit that was used to dock the spaceships with the Nauka.
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The Progress 78 cargo ship arrived at the space station two days after it was launched. The supplies were delivered to the station's astronauts.
The Progress 78 was expected to burn up in the atmosphere after it fell from space over the Pacific Ocean.
The Prichal module will dock at the International Space Station on Friday. The time is 1526 GMT. You can watch it on the internet, with NASA starting at 9:30 a.m. The time is 1430 GMT.
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