The Russian unmanned cargo ship "Progress MS-33" will have to dock manually with the International Space Station (ISS) due to a technical problem with an antenna, "Roscosmos" reported, quoted by "Reuters".
The ship was launched with a Soyuz-2.1a rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, but during the flight a defect was found in one of the antennas of the automatic rendezvous system KURS. This requires switching to manual mode when docking with the station.
The operation is expected to be carried out on Tuesday at around 13:35 GMT (15:35 Bulgarian time) by the ISS commander, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Kud-Sverchkov. According to the head of the Cosmonaut Training Center Oleg Kononenko, manual maneuvers are a standard part of training and are regularly practiced.
NASA specifies that all other systems of the ship are functioning normally, and specialists continue to work on fixing the problem with the antenna.
"Progress MS-33" transports about 2.5 tons of cargo - food, water, fuel, oxygen and other supplies for the station crew.
Currently, seven astronauts and cosmonauts are on board the ISS, including three Russians, three Americans and one representative of France.