On December 14th, it was announced that the orbit of the International Space Station had been corrected. This correction is required to provide suitable ballistic conditions for launch of the Progress MS-20 cargo spacecraft. The official Telegram channel of Roscosmos announced the maneuver.
“A few minutes ago, the orbital altitude of the International Space Station was adjusted before the launch of the Progress MS-20 spacecraft. The engines of the Russian “truck” docked to the Zvezda module worked for 659 seconds and gave an impulse of 1.1 m/s”— stated in the message “Roskosmos”.
The adjustment took place at 21:05 Moscow hour. As a result, the orbit of the station increased by 1.9 km to 418.22km. The Progress MS-18 cargo ship’s engines were used to accomplish this. 319 orbit corrections were performed throughout the flight of the ISS.
The station currently has a crew of Roscosmos astronauts Oleg Artemiev and Denis Matveev, National Aeronautics and Space Administration astronauts Chell Lindgren and Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines (Bob Hines), and Jessica Watkins, and Samantha Cristoforetti, European Space Agency astronaut.