International Space Station is controlled from Russian Mission Control

Thursday, March 4, 2021

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On Wednesday night the orbital altitude of the International Space Station will be increased by approximately 3.5 kilometers, official spokesman for the Russian Mission Control Center Valeri Lyndin told RIA Novosti. "The ISS orbital correction will take place in the small hours of February 16. At 4:22, Moscow time, the ISS engines will give it only one impulse enough to raise the orbit by about 3.5 kilometers", he said. The previous orbital increase was on January 15. Then, the orbit of the ISS station, which was coming closer to the earth by 100 to 150 meters daily, was raised by 8.5 kilometers at a time. This was done in part to make up for the altitude shortfall happening on November 17, 2004, when the ISS failed to reach the orbital target altitude by 2.7 kilometers because of a wrong scheme of fuel injection into the engines. Earlier, the ISS Russian segment flight controller Vladimir Solovyov said, summing up the results of work of the technical commission: "We've checked everything and found that our ground mathematical stands, where preliminary calculations are always made, cannot detect all the particulars". "This is the reason why the wrong lower-pressure scheme of fuel injection was used and, although the engines worked during the set time, the thrust was 40 percent below calculated", Mr.Solovyov said. He assured that the ground simulation stands would be updated. "The stand program has to be updated and new mathematical models added", he said. This orbital correction is a planned operation, to be held as part of preparations for docking with the new cargo craft, Progress M-53.

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