Down to earth! Russian ship falls from space

Russia’s space agency says an unmanned cargo ship went out of control en route the International Space Station (ISS) and fell back to earth over the Pacific Ocean.

A brief statement from Roscosmos says the Progress craft entered the planet’s atmosphere about 10pm EDT yesterday. The ship was expected to mostly burn up from the friction of the re-entry, and there were no reports of fragments being spotted.

The cargo ship was launched on April 28 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, but it entered the wrong orbit and went into a spin.

The Progress spacecraft has been supporting space stations as an expendable supply runner for decades, with the ISS most recently relying on it for deliveries.

In total, 62 Progress spacecraft have been sent to ISS, and this is only the second one not to make it. The lack of delivery has not caused any major problems for the astronauts on board ISS, but they are now short 3 tons of food, fuel, and supplies. Another mission should fill that gap long before supplies run short, though.

The next launch of a supply ship, by the US company SpaceX, is planned for June.

As for what caused the Progress 59 failure, that’s not clear yet and the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) is currently investigating exactly what happened.

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