After almost two decades in operation at the International Space Station (ISS), the Pirs docking module has finally departed the space laboratory before turning to ashes up in Earth’s atmosphere. Russia’s Pirs module, also called DC-1, arrived at the ISS in September 2001 and has hosted many spacecraft over the course of its service while also assisting with an airlock for more than 50 spacewalks.
It also marks the first permanent decommissioning procedure for a major part of the ISS. Pirs will be replaced by a newer module called Nauka that has already been launched and will reach the orbiting outpost on July 29. The module drifted off aboard the Progress cargo ship that docked with the ISS in February this year.
Final moments captured
The final hours of the departure were documented by the crew member aboard the ISS Thomas Pesquet. Russia’s space agency Roscossmos also shared an image of the module’s final moments.
“It’s not every day that you see a piece of the station being taken away,” Pesquet commented on the photos. “We pitched the International Space Station 90 degrees, and so we flew belly first, to help out with the maneuver.”
The French astronaut also added that it was “quite a strange feeling to see a part of your ship fly away in mid-air. A couple of hours later and we had front-row seat to the fireball that was going to be DC-1’s last act.”
New module ready to dock
Some non-combustible parts of the module were later confirmed to have fallen safely into the Pacific Ocean. During its tenure at the ISS, more than 70 spacecraft docked with Russia’s Pirs module.
Speaking of Nauka, it is a research module for the Russian segment of the ISS. It is built by RSC Energia in collaboration with Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center. The module is designed to amplify the functionality of the Russian segment of the space laboratory. The module will pack the European Robotic Arm that will work with a new Russian airlock to transfer small payloads from inside the ISS to its exterior.
