The VBK-Raduga capsule was a reentry capsule that was used for returning materials to Earth's surface from the space station Mir.

For return, the capsule would be substituted for the Progress' docking probe before it left the space station, and then after the Progress-M performed its deorbit burn, the capsule was ejected at 120 km altitude to reenter the atmosphere independently.

[1] Each Raduga was about 1.5 m long, 60 cm in diameter, and had an unloaded mass of about 350 kg.

It could return about 150 kg of cargo back to Earth.

[citation needed] The European Space Agency studied a very similar system called PARES (Payload Retrieval System), for use in combination with the Automated Transfer Vehicle.