A Russian cosmonaut on the International Space Station conducted a manual docking of an arriving cargo spacecraft on Tuesday, two days after the craft lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The docking would normally be an automatic process, but the Russian space agency Roscosmos had said that an antenna used in that process remained unfolded after the uncrewed Progress MS-33 cargo ship launched on a Soyuz-2.1a rocket on Sunday. Troubleshooting efforts during the journey to the space station, or ISS, failed to fix the problem.
On board the space station, cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov used a joystick during the manual docking. A live video feed on the NASA website showed that the procedure went smoothly as the cargo ship slowed down and approached its docking port on the Russian segment of the ISS.
“Well done, congratulations on your successful work!” Roscosmos said on Telegram.
A NASA commentator said the docking process occurred as the space station and cargo spacecraft flew about 400 kilometers over the border between Kazakhstan and Mongolia.
The Progress MS-33 had launched from a key Baikonur launch pad that was repaired and used for the first time since it was damaged in a lift-off in November. It carried about 2.7 tons of food, fuel and other supplies to the International Space Station.
