Space station’s orbit to be raised by 6 km

The orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) will be raised on Friday by 6 km (3.72 miles) to 392 km (243.5 miles), a spokesman for Russia’s Mission Control said. The orbit’s correction will be carried out with the use of thrusters of Russia’s Zvezda module. “The thrusters will be switched on for 217 seconds starting at 08.07 a.m. Moscow time (04:07 GMT),” the official said. “As a result, the average orbit will be increased by six kilometers to 392.3 km.” The operation to raise the orbit is necessary to ensure favorable conditions for the landing of Russia’s Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft on November 22 and the docking of Soyuz TMA-03M piloted spacecraft with the orbital station in December. Corrections to the space station's orbit are conducted periodically to compensate for Earth's gravity, to safeguard successful dockings and landings of spacecraft, and to avoid potential collisions with space debris. The ISS crew currently consists of Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoly Ivanishin and Sergei Volkov, NASA astronauts Daniel Burbank and Mike Fossum, and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa. Volkov, Fossum and Furukawa are expected to return to Earth on November 22 on board Russia’s Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft.