Orbit raised to help crew return to Earth

KOROLEV, Russia, May 5 (UPI) -- The International Space Station's orbit was raised 0.62 miles Thursday to help NASA's Catherine Coleman and other crew members return to Earth, Russia said.

"The readjustment is necessary to ensure the best conditions for the successful return of Soyuz TMA-20 crew to Earth on May 24," Russian Federal Space Agency's mission control center in Korolev near Moscow said before raising the space station's orbit.

The process took just under 4 minutes, giving the station a boost of about 2 feet per second, RIA Novosti reported.

Soyuz TMA-20 will bring back astronaut Coleman, a veteran of two U.S. space shuttle missions, Russian cosmonaut Cmdr. Dmitri Kondratyev and European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli of Italy, whose mother died Monday at age 78.

The crew members have been aboard the internationally developed research facility in low Earth orbit since December.

Corrections to the space station's orbit are conducted periodically before spacecraft launches to compensate for the Earth's gravity and to safeguard successful dockings and landings, the Russian space agency said.