MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th July, 2021) Several problems were registered at Russia's multipurpose laboratory module Nauka during its flight to the International Space Station (ISS), but now everything is fine and it will dock as scheduled, the European Space Agency (ESA) confirmed on Wednesday.
The Nauka module was launched from the Baikonur spaceport on July 21 and is scheduled to dock with the ISS on Thursday. Alexander Khokhlov, a member of the Russian Federation of Cosmonautics, told Sputnik about some emergency situations on the module, noting that the experts managed to fix most of the problems.
"As expected, Nauka deployed its solar panels and antennas about 13 minutes after launch, and the eight-day journey to the Space Station began. However, soon after missing telemetry was reported at the mission control centre in Moscow, Russia. The glitch was detected when the spacecraft did not complete its first burn, aimed at raising its orbit.� During the whole week, flight engineers have been busy running critical propulsion tests and carrying out orbital corrections ... The uncertainty was intensified by the troubleshooting of the Kurs rendezvous system on Nauka," ESA said in a press release.
Eventually, "hectic days" culminated with the assurance that the spacecraft could reach the ISS relying on its own power and navigation systems, ESA added.
