When a cosmonaut of the International Space Station (ISS) looked out of the window into space, he encountered an image he often did not see: Four eyes looking towards him…
Cosmonaut Sergey Korsakov, the Russian cargo ship left the space station and came home. After watching him go, he tweeted, “The Progress MS-18 has successfully dislodged and left.” He continued: “But who are those stowaways following us?”
Korsakov, of course, knew what these “eyes” were. But the responses on Twitter, Dr. It spanned a wide range from Who’s Daleks to Star Wars’ R2D2 and Jawas.
Korsakov also shared a close-up shot of “bead-eyed trackers”, which are actually components of a cargo ship. The vehicle was resupplying the ISS, including fuel, research equipment, oxygen, water, and food, but that wasn’t its only mission. The spacecraft is also used to correct the orbit of the ISS. This fix also helps the ISS avoid the path of ever-increasing space junk. It also uses thrusters while docked to keep the space station from getting too close to Earth.
Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, in an interview with the Russian state newspaper TASS, said that the vehicle, known by NASA as ISS Progress 79, remained attached to the ISS for 214 days and retrieved 1.3 tons of garbage, end-of-life equipment and debris. With the completion of its work, the vehicle ended its return to the planet by burning hotly in Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean.
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