Russian ferry to undock from ISS and to drop in Pacific

Moscow, Feb 20 (Itar-Tass) Specialists of the MissionControl Centre, Moscow Region, will undock today a Progressferry, working in the orbital complex for six months, from theInternational Space Station and will drop it in the Pacific.

"A command will be sent to Progress M-07M for undockingfrom the station at 16:09 MT, the spaceship will separate fromthe ISS three minutes later, and its unburned fragments willdrop four hours later in a special area of the South Pacific,"Mission Control specified.

A Mission Control representative noted that the tug,docked to the Zvezda service module, has been part of theorbital complex since last September 12. Progress M-07M set arecord of a sort over this time: its jets were used to makeeight adjustments of the station''s orbit. Besides, Russiancosmonauts loaded manually over a tonne of garbage andworked-out equipment aboard the tug.

Progress M-07M will free a place at the Zvezda module forthe second European cargo spaceship of the ATV series -Johannes Kepler -- that blasted off from the French Kouroucosmodrome on February 17. All docking units of the Russiansegment are occupied: Progress M-07M and Progress M09M are atthe Zvezda service module and at the Pirs docking module,respectively, while rescue craft - manned Soyuz spaceships -are "tethered" to the small laboratory modules Poisk andRassvet.

According to calculations of Mission Control specialists,fragments of Progress M-07M will reach "the cemetery" ofspaceships in South Pacific at 19:58 MT. (Itar-Tass)