Russia's Progress spaceship to undock from ISS

2012-07-30 10:25:43 GMT2012-07-30 18:25:43(Beijing Time) Xinhua English

MOSCOW, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Russia's Progress M-15M space freighter will undock from the International Space Station (ISS) early Tuesday morning and return to Earth, the Mission Control Center said Monday.

"The undocking is scheduled for 1:16 a.m. Moscow time on Tuesday (2116 GMT on Monday).The freighter will have a three-week autonomous flight to conduct a series of experiments and will be deorbited and sunk in the Pacific afterwards," the center said.

According to the center, the experiments, as part of a Radar-Progress project, will include the study of engine impacts on the ionosphere.

The next spaceship Progress M-16M is scheduled to dock with the ISS on Aug. 2.

The unmanned Progress M-15M, which arrived at the ISS in April, re-docked with the ISS early Sunday, after a failed attempt five days ago.

No problems were reported about Sunday's second attempt in the video streamed from the Mission Control Center.

Progress freighters have been the backbone of the Russian space cargo fleet for decades. Russia lost a Progress cargo ship in 2011 for the first time in 30 years.

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