At the second attempt, the Russian Progress M-15M re-docked with the the International Space Station (ISS) with the help of a new rendezvous system on Sunday. 

      The information about the successful re-docking came from the the Russian Mission Control Center. “The re-docking took place in a normal mode at the estimated time,” it was reported. 

      On July 22, the space freighter undocked from the station to perform a series of engineering tests. It was expected to re-dock 24 hours later. But an emergency situation was registered during the re-docking, as the Kurs-NA navigation system revealed some unknown "technical mistakes" and made a passive abort - a standard procedure that took the Progress spacecraft to a safe distance of about 1.8 miles below the space station where it would remain until another attempt is made to re-redock with the ISS.

      The new rendezvous system is characterized by the full renunciation of the analog signal processing. Now this function is implemented by microprocessors. 

      After an additional testing the system is expected to be installed on cargo spacecrafts "Progress" and manned spaceships "Soyuz". 

Related News: Progress Freighter Failed to Dock with Space Station (24.07.2012)

      Image: astronews.ru