Station Crew Completes Orbital Adjustment

Space & Earth science / Space Exploration

Crew members Pavel Vinogradov and Jeff Williams successfully raised the International Space Station's orbit last Thursday by firing the engines of the Russian Progress 21 cargo craft currently docked to the facility.

Mission controllers had determined the orbital adjustment - which raised the altitude of the station by about 1.7 miles - was a desirable maneuver to ease rendezvous conditions slightly for Russian spacecraft and to test the action in case the station needed to be moved out of danger of colliding with orbiting debris.

A previous orbital adjustment attempt last month had to be canceled because of a technical problem.

Meanwhile, commander Vinogradov and flight engineer Williams have been performing various scheduled experiments aboard the station, and they participated in an interactive televised educational event, also last Thursday morning, involving Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and NASA's Explorer Schools program.

Copyright 2006 by Space Daily, Distributed United Press International

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