An unmanned Russian spacecraft on Thursday docked with the International Space Station after making the trip from Earth in record time, reports quoted officials as saying. A new approach manoeuvre allowed the Progress M16-M vessel to reach the space station, 350 kilometres above the Earth, after fewer orbits, taking a total six hours in transit as compared to the usual two days.
The cargo ship took off on board a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:35 am Thursday (1935 Wednesday GMT), carrying 2.6 tons of supplies, fuel, oxygen, spare parts, scientific equipment and gifts for the space station's crew. The automated docking came at 0118 GMT Thursday after four orbits around the Earth and a few minutes ahead of schedule, several reports in Russian media quoted mission control as saying.
It was the shortest flight by an Earth-launched vehicle to a space link-up since a US mission by a manned Gemini rocket flew to a satellite in September 1966 in some two hours. The new shorter flight and approach to the ISS, accompanied by advances in docking technologies, could be used in the future for manned Soyuz capsules, cutting time and expense, space agency officials said.
"If you can get the crew to orbit in six hours and onboard the International Space Station, that could be a tremendous benefit over the two-plus days it takes today," Dan Harman, NASA's space station manager of operations and integration, told reporters last week.
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