Nearly 20 years after it was attached to the International Space Station, Russia’s Pirs module has undocked from the planet’s only inhabited satellite and is now heading for a destructive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
The Pirs segment, which served as a docking port and airlock, is soon to be replaced by a brand-new state-of-the-art module named ‘Nauka,’ a multifunctional laboratory that will be used by Russian astronauts for scientific experiments.
Pirs was detached on Monday, during a live web broadcast. The Progress MS-16 cargo spacecraft is now taking the module towards the Earth’s atmosphere, where it will blow up upon entry. The non-flammable elements will be submerged in the South Pacific Ocean.
The removed Pirs section has been a part of the ISS since 2001, and enabled Russian spacecraft to dock onto the satellite, allowing cosmonauts to leave and return.
The new Nauka module was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome last Wednesday afternoon, fired by a Proton-M rocket. Less than ten minutes after takeoff, Proton-M detached from Nauka, putting it into orbit. It is due to be docked with the Russian section of the ISS on July 29.
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Nauka, which will be used for experiments, can also generate oxygen for six people and regenerate water from urine. It will also have a second toilet for Russian cosmonauts and be able to accommodate a third crew member.
Earlier this year, the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, revealed that Moscow would withdraw from the ISS project in 2025 and create its own space station if the US continued to impose sanctions against the Russian space sector. President Vladimir Putin has already signed off on a project for a Russian-only orbital station, due to consist of three to seven modules.
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