Russian resupply spacecraft coming off orbit as mission over - mission control
MOSCOW. Oct 29 (Interfax-AVN) - Russian resupply spacecraft Progress M-10M, which left the International Space Station (ISS) several hours ago, has had its engine switched off to slow down and come off orbit, a spokesman for the Russian Mission Control Center in Korolyov, near Moscow, told Interfax-AVN.
Most of the craft will burn down on re-entering the atmosphere, and the rest will be sunk at 1300 GMT on Saturday in the so-called Spacecraft Cemetery, an area in the southern Pacific Ocean lying a long way from navigation routes.
Progress M-10M will be replaced at the ISS by Progress M-13M, which is due to take off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1011 GMT on Sunday. It will be carried to orbit by a Soyuz-U rocket and is scheduled to dock with the station's Pirs module at 1140 GMT on November 2.
Progress M-10M, which was launched from Baikonur on April 27, 2011, and docked with the ISS two days later, brought 2,645 kilograms of various kinds of cargo to the station.