Photo: SC Yuzhny/TsENKI
Two space carrier rockets (CR) were launched yesterday: at 14:01 Moscow time from the launch pad of the Baikonur cosmodrome and headed toward the ISS Soyuz-2.1a with the transport cargo vehicle Progress MS-11, and Soyuz-ST-B was launched from the Guiana Space Center with the Fregat-MT upper stage rocket and four O3b communication satellites at 20:03 Moscow time. In both cases, the RD-107A/RD-108A serial production engines of PJSC Kuznetsov, installed on the CR, functioned successfully.
The Progress MS-11 transport spacecraft docked to the Pirs module of the International Space Station at 17:22 Moscow time, thus becoming the fastest spacecraft in the history of flights to the ISS: only 3 hours and 21 minutes passed from launch to docking. Previously, the title of record holder belonged to Progress MS-09, which in July of 2018 docked with the ISS in 3 hours 40 minutes after launching from Baikonur.
The Progress MS-11 ship delivered over 2.5 tons of various cargoes to the station: more than 1.4 tons of dry cargo, 900 kg of fuel, 420 kg of water in storage tanks, and also 47 kg of compressed air and oxygen in cylinders. In the packing of the cargo compartment contained scientific equipment, components for the life support system, as well as containers with food products, clothing, medicines and personal care products for crew members.
Having successfully launched from the Guiana Space Center, Soyuz-ST-B carrier rockets launched four European O3b telecommunications spacecraft to the calculated orbits, which will add to the large-scale homonymic constellation of satellites. There are now 16 such satellites in orbit, they provide high-speed mobile and fixed communications to residents of remote and developing regions.
We remind that the operation of Samara built rockets and engines from the Guiana Space Center began in October 2011. The launch of Soyuz-ST-B carrier rockets with RD-107A/RD-108A engines from the Kourou cosmodrome became the twenty-second in a row.
