Astronomy:VBK-Raduga

NASA illustration of a VBK-Raduga ballistic return capsule during final descent to Earth.

The VBK-Raduga capsule was a reentry capsule that was used for returning materials to Earth's surface from the space station Mir. They were brought to Mir in the Progress-M cargo craft's dry cargo compartment. For return, the capsule would be substituted for the Progress' docking probe before it left the space station, and then after the Progress-M performed its deorbit burn, the capsule was ejected at 120 km altitude to reenter the atmosphere independently. It would then parachute to a landing area in Russia.

Each Raduga was about 1.5 m long, 60 cm in diameter, and had an unloaded mass of about 350 kg. It could return about 150 kg of cargo back to Earth. Use of the Raduga reduced the Progress-M's cargo capacity by about 100 kg, to a maximum of about 2400 kg.

The European Space Agency studied a very similar system called PARES (Payload Retrieval System), for use in combination with the Automated Transfer Vehicle.

Capsule	Launch date	Carried by	Notes
VBK-Raduga 1	27 September 1990	Progress M-5
VBK-Raduga 2	19 March 1991	Progress M-7	Lost on reentry
VBK-Raduga 3	20 August 1991	Progress M-9
VBK-Raduga 4	17 October 1991	Progress M-10
VBK-Raduga 5	19 April 1992	Progress M-12
VBK-Raduga 6	15 August 1992	Progress M-14
VBK-Raduga 7	31 March 1993	Progress M-17	Capsule returned by Progress M-18
VBK-Raduga 8	10 August 1993	Progress M-19
VBK-Raduga 9	11 October 1993	Progress M-20
VBK-Raduga 10	22 March 1994	Progress M-23
	9 April 1995	Progress M-27

See also

• HTV Small Re-entry Capsule