Europe’s ATV-4 to raise International Space Station orbit by 1.6 miles

PanARMENIAN.Net - The European Space Agency’s fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV-4) will readjust the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday, July 10 a spokesman for the Russian space agency Roscosmos said, according to RIA Novosti.

“ATV-4 engines will be started at 9:35 a.m. Moscow Time [5:34 GMT]. They will work for 593 seconds [almost 10 minutes]. As a result of the maneuver, the ISS’s orbit will be raised by about 2.5 kilometers [1.6 miles],” the spokesman said adding that the station’s orbit will total 417.3 kilometers (259.3 miles).

Adjustments to the station's orbit are carried out regularly to compensate for the Earth's gravity and to facilitate the successful docking and undocking of spacecraft.

This time, the orbit readjustment will be held to create the best conditions for the docking of the Progress M-20M cargo spacecraft, which is scheduled to be launched from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on July 28.

ATV-4 resupply vehicle was launched atop an Ariane 5 rocket from the Kourou space center in French Guyana on June 5 and docked with the ISS on June 15.