Russian Progress MS-23 cargo spacecraft sinks in Pacific

“Today, the Progress MS-23 cargo spacecraft, which worked on the International Space Station for more than half a year, was deorbited, entered the atmosphere and disintegrated,” ROSCOSMOS, the state space corporation of Russia, was quoted by TASS news agency as saying.

The spacecraft undocked from ISS at 10:55 a.m. Moscow time (0755 GMT) on Wednesday. After that, it switched to autonomous flight.

The cargo spacecraft was part of the ISS since May 24 of this year. It delivered almost 2.5 tons of cargo to the station, including the universal workstation URM-D, which the cosmonauts installed outside the Zvezda module during the extravehicular activity on Aug. 9.

The next cargo spacecraft, Progress MS-25, will take the place of Progress MS-23. It is scheduled to launch from the Baikonur cosmodrome on Dec. 1 and dock with the ISS on Dec. 3.

RHM/PR