ISS orbit raising operation planned for this Saturday

MOSCOW, August 1 (Itar-Tass) -- Specialists at the Russian Mission
Control Centre will conduct an ISS orbit correction operation this
Saturday for the second time this year.
The manoeuvre will be conducted to prepare the working orbit for
docking with the manned Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft, the launch of which is
planned for September 30, and also to ensure conditions for Soyuz TMA-14
to land in the planned area, a source at the Mission Control Centre based
near Moscow told Itar-Tass.
Specialists plan more than one orbit correction operation to create
optimum conditions for the docking and the Soyuz landing.
The eight docking and orientation engines of the Progress M-67 cargo
craft, which docked to the Zvezda service module on Wednesday, will be
used for the raising manoeuvre.
The Russian Mission Control Centre beginning October last year raised
the orbit with the engines of the service module, while cargo craft were
at the docking module Pirs, from where it is not suitable to conduct a
manoeuvre.
The controllers plan to start the engines at 12:15 Moscow time, and
while the engines work for 459 seconds, the space station will be raised
about 2.2 kilometres.
Orbit correction manoeuvres are carried out to bring the station to a
planned point for docking with a cargo space vehicle or a manned
spacecraft. The orbit is changed sometimes to move away from space rubbish
-- small meteorites and remains of old satellites and spacecraft. For
example, the Endeavor shuttle in mid-July brought the station away from a
space object.
.

.Two gunmen killed in Grozny.
.

GROZNY, August 1 (Itar-Tass) -- Two members of illegal armed groups,
including one of the last gunmen from Isa Chyorny's group, were killed in
a special operation in Grozny on Friday, Chechen Minister of Interior
Affairs Ruslan Alkhanov told Itar-Tass.
A gunman was blocked in a flat in Grozny's Zavodskoi district on
Friday at 17:15 Moscow time. When policemen attempted to detain him, he
opened fire on them and was killed when policemen fired back. He is
identified as Magomed Izrailov, born in 1985, a resident of the settlement
of Goity, the Urus-Martan district, Alkhanov said.
The gunmen was from the group, members of which were killed in a
special operation in Goity on July 25, when six members of illegal armed
groups were blocked in a house and opened fire. According to the Federal
Security Service information, among the killed gunmen was the group's
leader Isa Izerkhanov also known as Isa Chyorny (Black), who headed the
bandit group since March 2008. He repeatedly was sent by Doka Umarov to
the Grozny area to commit acts of sabotage and terrorism. He personally
participated in attacks on policemen and representatives of federal
authorities.
With the gunman recently killed in Grozny's Staropromyslovsky district
taken into account, the group of gunmen has practically ceased to exist,
the minister said.
Another gunman was killed in the Chechen capital's Leninsky district
on Friday. When an attempt was made to detain the gunman, he opened fire
and was killed in the retaliatory fire. His identity has yet to be
established.
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