Roscosmos, the Russian owned space corporation, launched the Progress MS-16 resupply mission to the International Space Station right on time from Site No. 31/6 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 04:45:06 UTC on 15 February (23:45:06 EST on 14 February).
Unlike most Russian missions to the Station, this flight did not make use of the fast track or super fast track launch-to-docking timeline and is instead performing a two day, 33 orbit rendezvous with the Station before docking on Wednesday, 17 February at approximately 06:26 UTC (01:26 EST) – albeit on manual control via Sergey Ryzhikov after the automated docking suffered an issue 20 meters out.
Prior to launch, the Progress MS-16 spacecraft completed testing and checkouts of its solar arrays, power, and onboard systems in mid-January as technicians began final preparations for flight.
In early-February, the spacecraft was fueled for flight before being mated to the Blok-I stage adapter. Integrated checkouts and final cargo and vehicle inspections were then completed before Progress was encapsulated inside its payload fairing.
Progress MS-16 is carrying approximately 2,460 kg of cargo, including 600 kg of propellant, 40.5 kg of pressurized gases, 420 kg of drinking water, and approximately 1,400 kg of dry cargo — which includes food and personal items for the crew, Station equipment and science, and a repair kit for the Zvezda service module leak.
The encapsulated Progress MS-16 craft was loaded into a specialized rail car and transported from its processing center, Site 254, to the integration and test facility. There, the spacecraft was integrated with the Soyuz 2.1a rocket the following day.
The Soyuz 2.1a is a two stage launcher, with its first stage augmented by four liquid boosters. The boosters are called Blok-B, -V, -G, and -D, and each is powered by a single RD-107A engine.
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#Видео: общая сборка ракеты космического назначения в составе ракеты-носителя «Союз-2.1а» с грузовым кораблем #ПрогрессМС16.
Отправка «космического грузовика» запланирована на 15 февраля с Байконура pic.twitter.com/biJLDUi9lw
— РОСКОСМОС (@roscosmos) February 11, 2021
(In the above tweet, workers prepare the Soyuz 2.1a rocket for the Progress MS-16 launch.)
The first stage, Blok-A, uses a single RD-108A engine while the second stage, Blok-I, is equipped with an RD-0110 engine.
All stages and boosters burn RP-1 rocket-grade kerosene and liquid oxygen.
The Soyuz 2.1a is a part of the Soyuz-2 rocket family, itself part of the R7 rocket lineage dating back to the 1950s, and incorporates better performance and safety on its engines as well as modern hardware and software than its predecessors.
See Also
- LIVE: Progress MS-16
- L2 Russian Section
- L2 ISS Section
- Click here to Join L2
Progress was first introduced in 1978 as a cargo ferry for the Salyut 6 space station. Like Soyuz, it has been upgraded numerous times, with its current MS-series debuting in 2015.
After Progress MS-16 was fully integrated with its Soyuz 2.1a launcher, the entire stack was taken by rail to Site No. 31/6 on Friday, 12 February where it was raised vertical.
The mission had an instantaneous launch window at 04:45:06 UTC on Monday, 15 February (which was 23:45:06 EST on Sunday, 14 February) in order to place Progress into the orbital plane of the Station.
At the time of liftoff, the ISS was approximately 12,660 km away on the other side of the planet, crossing the southern tip of Argentina and South America as it began a northeasterly pass across the south Atlantic.
After rising from the pad, Soyuz performed a pitch and roll maneuver to place itself onto the correct trajectory to achieve a 51.6 degree inclination orbit.
After separation of the four side-mounted boosters, the Blok-A stage continued firing until T+4 minutes 45 seconds, during which the payload fairing separated once the vehicle climbed out of most of the discernible atmosphere and the aerodynamic protection of the fairing was no longer needed.
The location of the International Space Station at the time of Progress MS-16’s launch. (Credit: GoISSWatch App)
Just three seconds prior to Blok-A stage shutdown and separation, the Blok-I second stage’s RD-0110 engine ignited, using the still-thrusting Blok-A stage’s engine to create propellant stability for engine ignition.
This is known as “hot-fire” staging.
The Blok-I stage then burned for approximately four minutes to insert Soyuz into a 200 km circular orbit, with final burn duration determined by Soyuz 2.1a’s onboard computers based on the final mass of Progress MS-16 and the day-of engine performance across the Soyuz 2.1a.
Progress separation occurred four seconds after Blok-I stage shutdown, at which point the craft immediately deployed its communication antennas and solar arrays.
Over the course of following two days, Progress performed a series of burns to raise its orbit up to the current 417 x 422 km orbit of the Station.
While most Progress and current Soyuz MS-series cargo and crew vehicles, respectively, have made use of fast track or super fast track rendezvous profiles to the Station, which see the missions arrive between three to six hours after launch, that kind of flight is not always required and the need to adjust the Station’s orbit to accommodate such launch profiles in relation to other missions around it largely determines when such flights can occur.
On this occasion, a longer, two day rendezvous was selected.
Approaching the Station on Wednesday, 17 February, Progress MS-16’s automated Kurs-NA docking system was set to perform the docking with the Pirs docking compartment (DC-1) at approximately 06:20 UTC (01:20 EST) — with Roscosmos noting a +/- 3 minute caveat to that time as Progress vehicles almost always arrive early or ahead of the planned timeline.
Progress MS-01 approaches the International Space Station for docking in December 2015. (Credit: Roscosmos)
Given the unusual automated docking of the Progress MS-15 craft in 2020 when a software issue caused it to drift off course and sway significantly when it was just 3 to 5 meters from the Station, more attention than usual will be paid to the docking system and the ability/need for the Russian crewmembers on Station to take manual control of Progress MS-16 if needed.
That proved to be the case with MS-16 suffering a communication issue 20 meters from docking, requiring Sergey Ryzhikov to take manual control. He successfully parked the Progress.
Manual control was also requested during Progress MS-15’s software failure, but the request was denied by Mission Control Moscow. A successful automated docking took place minutes later.
With Progress MS-16 docked to Pirs, the Expedition 63 crew will start unloading its cargo. The craft is scheduled to remain at the Station until June 2021 when the current plan calls for it to be used to remove Pirs from the ISS and bring it into Earth’s atmosphere for a destructive reentry.
This task has been assigned to prior Progress missions, including Progress MS-15, as removing Pirs will clear the nadir port on the Zvezda service module for the long-awaited arrival of Nauka, the multipurpose Russian module for the Station.
Nauka is currently scheduled to launch in July 2021 and will be the first Russian module added to the Station since Rassvet (MRM-1) in May 2010, which itself was delivered to the ISS by the crew of Space Shuttle Atlantis on the STS-132 mission.
Lead image: Soyuz 2.1a launches a Progress mission to the Station.
