Radio Contact Canceled: Russian story out of control

The unmanned transporter "Progress 59" staggers through the All without radio contact. The planned docking with the Space Station (ISS) is excluded - no longer to prevent early crash.

The van has about 2.4 tonnes supplies for the International Space Station (ISS) on board. But he moves on a wrong orbit. An employee of the Space Agency Roskosmos said the agency according to Tass. The story of the cosmonauts had to many radio signals in Moscow does not respond. The ground staff had repeatedly tried to get in contact with the "Progress 59".

The effort was obviously in vain. The unmanned freighter have started to fall on the earth, a Russian Raumfahrtvertreter said on Wednesday. "Progress" is finally out of control. "Only a miracle can still help", quoted the agency Ria every day a member of staff of the cosmonauts. Should also contact the last attempts a failure, falls of the unmanned freighter was probably between 7 and 11. May uncontrollably.

Rotation around its own axis

The freighter was on Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It provided for the franco-russian orbit clearly missed the. The main reason for this was probably a defect in the third stage of the rocket. The van heavily focusing on the wrong orbit around its own axis, it was said. Docking with the ISS is out of the question. You have tried to turn on its own axis to stop and realign the spaceship.

On re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere is likely burn up most of the freighter, but fragments could also reach the ground. "We can say we a few hours previously, where possible debris will fall", said a Roskosmos-Experte . Controlled crashes are usually carried out on the sea, not to endanger people.

There is still enough food supplies to the ISS

The expert called the breakdown of the cosmonauts "worrying", because they had occurred in a Soyuz rocket, which also will be used for manned flights. May be the for the 26. May planned start of three astronauts to the ISS, and only moved to closely analyze the failure, it said. By the loss would suffer a loss of around 88 million euros.

For the time being, according to the Space Station Roscosmos enough food and technical materials on board. On the outpost of humanity 400 kilometers above the earth are currently working six crew members.