Explosion marks end of space mission
Source: Agencies |
August 25, 2011, Thursday
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AN unmanned Russian supply ship bound for the International Space Station failed to reach its planned orbit yesterday - pieces of it fell in Siberia with a thunderous explosion, officials said.
A brief statement from Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, did not specify whether the Progress supply ship that was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan had been lost.
But state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Alexander Borisov, head of a the Choisky region in Russia's Altai province, as saying pieces of the craft fell in his area some 1,500 kilometers northeast of the launch site.
He said: "The explosion was so strong that for 100 kilometers glass almost flew out of the windows."
He said there were no immediate reports of casualties.
The Russian Emergencies Ministry and Roscosmos officials could not be reached for comment.
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The space agency said the third stage of the rocket firing the ship into space had failed at 325 seconds into the launch.
The ship was carrying more than 2.5 tons of supplies, including oxygen, food and fuel.
Since the ending of the US space shuttle program this summer, Russian spaceships are a principal supply link to the space station.
There are six astronauts aboard the space station, which orbits 350km above Earth. They are Russians Andrei Borisenko, Alexander Samokuyayev and Sergei Volkov, Americans Michael Fossum and Ronald Garan, and Satoshi Furukawa of Japan.
US National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman Kelly Humphries said: "The supplies aboard the space station are actually pretty fat (after the resupply mission by space shuttle Atlantis in July). So we do not anticipate any immediate impact on the crew."
Interfax news agency cited a Russian space analyst, Sergei Puzanov, as saying the space station had supplies aboard that could last two to three months and "the situation with the loss of the Progress cannot be called critical."
In July last year, a Progress supply ship failed in its first automatic docking attempt owing to equipment malfunction, but was connected with the orbiting laboratory two days later.
A brief statement from Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, did not specify whether the Progress supply ship that was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan had been lost.
But state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Alexander Borisov, head of a the Choisky region in Russia's Altai province, as saying pieces of the craft fell in his area some 1,500 kilometers northeast of the launch site.
He said: "The explosion was so strong that for 100 kilometers glass almost flew out of the windows."
He said there were no immediate reports of casualties.
The Russian Emergencies Ministry and Roscosmos officials could not be reached for comment.
Principal link
The space agency said the third stage of the rocket firing the ship into space had failed at 325 seconds into the launch.
The ship was carrying more than 2.5 tons of supplies, including oxygen, food and fuel.
Since the ending of the US space shuttle program this summer, Russian spaceships are a principal supply link to the space station.
There are six astronauts aboard the space station, which orbits 350km above Earth. They are Russians Andrei Borisenko, Alexander Samokuyayev and Sergei Volkov, Americans Michael Fossum and Ronald Garan, and Satoshi Furukawa of Japan.
US National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman Kelly Humphries said: "The supplies aboard the space station are actually pretty fat (after the resupply mission by space shuttle Atlantis in July). So we do not anticipate any immediate impact on the crew."
Interfax news agency cited a Russian space analyst, Sergei Puzanov, as saying the space station had supplies aboard that could last two to three months and "the situation with the loss of the Progress cannot be called critical."
In July last year, a Progress supply ship failed in its first automatic docking attempt owing to equipment malfunction, but was connected with the orbiting laboratory two days later.
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