Unsuccessful launch for Russian spacecraft

Unsuccessful launch for Russian spacecraft

Spacecraft Progress, while being sent to the International Space Station, burned down in the atmosphere, failing to reach orbit.

Unmanned cargo ship, going to the ISS, burned down in the atmosphere after starting on Thursday. This was reported by the Russian Space Agency, concerned about the safety of future travel to space.

“According to preliminary data, as a result of an unforeseen situation, the problem occurred at an altitude of 190 km above the remote and uninhabited mountainous territory (Russia) of Tuva. Most of the fragments burned in dense atmospheric layers, ”wrote Roscosmos in a statement.

Earlier, Roskosmos stated that they lost contact with Progress MS-04 383 seconds after launching from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Experts immediately began to look for a problem.

The space agency says that the loss of a cargo ship “does not affect the normal operation of the ISS systems and the livelihood of the station’s crew.”

NASA wrote on the website that the shipments to the station are at a “good level”.

The cargo ship, which was supposed to arrive on the ISS on Saturday, was carrying 2.4 tons of fuel, equipment and food.

Second failed launch

The Russian agency reported that the state commission will investigate the incident. But they did not say whether it would affect further launches.

This is the second unsuccessful launch of the Progress cargo ship in the last two years. In April 2015, Progress collapsed after a sharp blow to the ground. Russia blames this failure on problems with the Soyuz rocket.

The incident kept Russia from space travel for almost 3 months and forced astronauts to spend an extra month at the station.

Since the same type of rocket is used for manned spacecraft, Russia plans to thoroughly study the problems of Progress before launching manned vessels.

Russia sends 3-4 such spacecraft per year to support the work of the ISS. After delivering the cargo, they fall back to Earth, burning in the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean.

Last month, Frenchman Thomas Persier, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and American astronaut Peggy Whitson went to the ISS with a 6-month mission.

The next launch in October with the Russians Andrei Borisenko and Sergei Ryzhikov and the American Shane Kimbrough did not happen and moved away for almost a month due to technical problems.

Technical failures may affect the duration of stay of a fully staffed six astronauts on the ISS.

The Russian Union capsules offer the only way to send astronauts to the ISS, since the American program resigned in 2011.

The space laboratory, where a whole series of research is being carried out, has been rotating around the Earth at a speed of about 28 thousand kilometers per hour (17,000 miles per hour) since 1998.

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