Russian engineers are assessing the feasibility of redocking the craft early next year to provide additional trash stowage volume for the station's crew. But this is a thorny issue for NASA managers and it's not yet clear how it will play out. The Progress is designed to carry out an automated docking with the space station using the Russian KURS guidance system. As a backup, a pilot on board the station can take over manual control using a joystick hand controller and a video monitor that shows the view a pilot would see if he or she was on board the Progress. During final approach Nov. 18, the automatic guidance system failed, apparently because of a software error, and cosmonaut Yuri Gidzenko had to take over for a manual TORU docking.
Russian engineers believe they understand what went wrong with the automatic guidance system.
But a redocking would have to be carried out by Gidzenko. An antenna used by the automatic rendezvous system from 200 meters in retracted during the initial docking attempt and it was not designed to be re-extended. So that's no issue. We would be nominally doing a manual docking. Obviously, since it's been done before we feel comfortable it can be done again.