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A Russian cargo spacecraft carrying supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) failed to deploy two of its antennas, jeopardizing its ability to dock with the space station.
The Roscosmos Progress 94 spacecraft launched on Monday at 7:59 a.m. ET on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. After liftoff, two of the spacecraft’s automated rendezvous antennas did not deploy as planned, NASA revealed in an update.
The spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the ISS on Tuesday at 9:45 a.m. ET. The Russian space agency is attempting to troubleshoot the issue ahead of the planned docking. If the troubleshooting fails, a cosmonaut on board the ISS will have to manually pilot the spacecraft.
The uncrewed Progress 94 is carrying about 3 tons of food, fuel, and other supplies to the ISS. After a two-day journey to low Earth orbit, the spacecraft was set to autonomously dock at the Poisk module’s space-facing port of the space station.
The spacecraft is equipped with Russia’s KURS system, an automated, radar-based docking navigation system that uses the antennas to control the approach and docking of the Progress spacecraft. With the antennas failing to deploy, Roscosmos may have to rely on one of its cosmonauts to do the job instead.
If the Russian space agency cannot resolve the issue ahead of the planned docking, Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov will manually pilot the spacecraft for the rendezvous and docking, according to NASA. Kud-Sverchkov would use the TORU (Telerobotically Operated Rendezvous System), a control panel located in the space station’s Zvezda Service Module that can be used as a backup to the KURS automated system.
Aside from the antenna glitch, NASA says Progress 94 is doing just fine. “All other systems are operating as designed, and Progress will continue toward its planned docking,” NASA wrote in its update.
NASA will cover the cargo spacecraft’s planned rendezvous and docking with the ISS, which will be streamed live on the agency’s YouTube channel. The live stream will begin on Tuesday at 8:45 a.m. ET.
If all goes well, the spacecraft is set to spend six months docked to the ISS before departing for a fiery re-entry maneuver through Earth’s atmosphere, which will dispose of Progress 94, along with trash loaded by the ISS crew.
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