Russia Prepares Pirs Module For Undocking From ISS

Russian cosmonauts have prepared the Pirs module for undocking from the International Space Station (ISS) ahead of the arrival of the country's new Multi-Purpose Laboratory Module Nauka on July 23, Russian space agency Roscosmos said Wednesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th July, 2021) Russian cosmonauts have prepared the Pirs module for undocking from the International Space Station (ISS) ahead of the arrival of the country's new Multi-Purpose Laboratory Module Nauka on July 23, Russian space agency Roscosmos said Wednesday.

"The Pirs docking module will be replaced by the new Nauka Multifunctional Laboratory Module. Pirs is to be undocked from the International Space Station by the Progress MS-16 cargo vehicle on July 23 at 4:17 p.m. Moscow time [13:17 GMT] and will sink in the Pacific Ocean in about four hours after undocking," the agency said.

Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov are in charge of the undocking.

In June they completed their seven-hour spacewalk to prepare the Pirs module for the disconnection.

The Nauka Laboratory Module is a research unit, aimed at expanding the functionality of the Russian segment of the ISS and facilitating the implementation of the Russian program of scientific and applied research and experiments.

The Pirs module was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in 2001 atop a specialized Progress-M cargo ship. Since then it has been used as an airlock for cosmonaut spacewalks, fuel transport between the Zvezda or Zarya modules and docked vehicles, and an additional docking port for the Soyuz crewed and Progress cargo spacecraft.