The Progress M-12M spacecraft carrying nearly three tones of food, spare parts and fuel supplies to six astronauts in the International Space Station (ISS) failed to reach the orbit on Wednesday, August 24, 2011. It had reportedly broken into three parts and its wreckage fell in Siberia amid a thunderous explosion.
Fortunately, the crash caused no emergency evacuation and danger for the screw. “The failure of the cargo Progress M-12M spacecraft to reach its targeted orbit will not affect the life support of the crews.” Russian space agency Roskomos said in a statement on its website.
According to Aleksandr Borisov, the head of the district, the explosion was so powerful that windows of the buildings 100 kilometers from the place where the spacecraft crashed were nearly smashed.
The Soyuz rocket booster carrying Progress supply ship is launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 5:00 pm Moscow time (13:00 GMT)
The unmanned spacecraft took in charge of bringing supplies for the astronauts including Ron Garan and Mike Fossum of the US, Satoshi Furukawa of Japan as well as Sergei Volkov and Alexander Samokutyayev of Russia. The screw can live for two or three months on the supplies they have, while another cargo spaceship cannot reach the orbit earlier than late Sep. 2011.
The mission control had stopped receiving trajectory data from the craft after the accident
The accident was among four space failures in Russia in the past twelve months. On August 18, 2011, Russia lost contact with the Express satellite after its launch onboard a Russian Proton-M carrier rocket from Baikonur. Last December, the Russian military and the space program lost connection with three GLONASS satellites.
The rare accident has been investigated by specialists because it is the first to happen with Russian cargo spaceships in the last 30 years. One possible cause of the crash could be engine problems
Unmanned Russian Cargo Spaceship Crashes in Siberia after Takeoff
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