After a two-day space voyage, a Russian cargo vehicle carrying a new docking module successfully docked with the International Space Station on Friday.
At 6:19 p.m. Moscow time, the new spherical module Prichal (Pier) docked with the orbiting base (1519 GMT). It has six docking ports and will allow the Russian part of the station to expand in the future.
The module has docked at the new Russian Nauka (Science) laboratory module’s docking port.
A Soyuz rocket launched from the Russian launch complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on Wednesday, carrying the Progress cargo ship and Prichal. The cargo ship carrying the module went into orbit after entering space.
Progress is also transporting 700 kilogrammes of assorted goods to the space station and is scheduled to dock on December 22.
On March 18, 2022, the first Soyuz spacecraft will dock to the new module, carrying three cosmonauts: Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev, and Sergei Korsakov.
The Russian crew aboard the station began practising for the module’s arrival earlier this week, simulating the use of manual controls in the event that the automatic docking system failed.
NASA astronauts Raja Chari, Thomas Marshburn, Kayla Barron, and Mark Vande Hei, Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer are now in charge of the space station.
