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Picture from here

What's the shiny, slightly curved triangular plate with rails above it?

enter image description here

A larger version, cropped from here, thanks to a comment by ohsin.

enter image description here

Organic Marble
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  • ...or a protective cover of the sign that says "drill here"? – uhoh Feb 13 '19 at 00:56
  • Hate to harsh your buzz :), but I looked at some old pics, and the thing was there on Progresses in 2011. – Organic Marble Feb 13 '19 at 01:34
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    @OrganicMarble so it seems that the 2011 post-drilling vacuum patch held? – uhoh Feb 13 '19 at 01:40
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    A better image(Progress 68) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ISS-53_Progress_MS-07_cargo_craft_docked_to_Pirs.jpg It was present in 2000 https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/station/progress/html/iss001-324-002.html – Ohsin Feb 13 '19 at 05:26
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    A close up of Ohsin's image suggests it is an antenna. –  Feb 13 '19 at 09:03
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    Thermal exhaust port. For we all know what happens when you leave it open. – void_ptr Feb 13 '19 at 18:40
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    This image shows the same feature on an unlaunched Progress vehicle in the factory. It looks very much like a triangular microstrip antenna for satellite comms. The only supplier of microstrip patch antennas for space systems that I know of is USA-based AntDevCo in Las Cruces, NM. Looks like Ivan has started building his own, prolly as part of the EKTS. – Jan van Oort Aug 30 '19 at 08:01
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    Same feature can be seen here on departing propulsion module (Progress-M derived) that delivered Poisk to ISS https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Propulsion_compartment_for_the_Poisk_module_departs.jpg – Ohsin Sep 01 '20 at 23:50
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    Not enough for an answer with authoritative quotes - it was on a French site thats since gone. It is indeed an antenna, it is the antenna for TORU, present on all Progress since M-15/1992. TORU was installed on Mir in Nov 1992 and they had been testing it since, with M-19 in 93. M-24 was the first full teleoperator docking of a Progress in Aug 94 after multiple collisions under automatic control. It has been installed on everything (Soyuz has a different antenna) since then. – blobbymcblobby Sep 30 '23 at 18:52
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    @blobbymcblobby I'm confident that it's an antenna, and not for Kurs (https://space.stackexchange.com/a/23585/6944) TORU sounds likely, wish there was a good updated Soyuz description document. – Organic Marble Sep 30 '23 at 19:01
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    @OrganicMarble - yup, TORU, not Kurs, which is quite well documented. I went through as many Russian docs as i could a long while back and although many mentions of installing and testing TORU, never any pictures. The first pic i know is of M-24 docked to Mir on STS-63 i think. – blobbymcblobby Sep 30 '23 at 19:07

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