ISS: Contact Lost With Russian Cargo Transport (UPDATED)

Pythom Dispatches

Update: Roscosmos confirmed Progress spaceship to ISS is destroyed The cargo craft was lost at 190 km altitude over a remote mountainous area of the Russian Republic of Tyva. Most of the debris burnt up in the Earth’s atmosphere. A state commission is carrying out an investigation into what caused the incident.

Previous:

NASA reports controllers wait for status of Russian Progress MS-04/65P cargo module launched earlier this morning (8:51 p.m. Baikonur time) on a resupply mission to the International Space Station.

Boosted by a Soyuz engine, close to 10 minutes into flight Progress was released into a two-day rendezvous orbit. It failed to deploy its solar arrays and telemetry was lost confirming further ascent. Carrying more than 2.6 tons of food, fuel, and supplies the craft is programmed to self-drive to the Space Station and dock with the Russian ISS Module at 11:43 EST, 16:43 UTC on Saturday 3 December.

NASA reports flight controllers are monitoring the spacecraft at this time and are standing by for additional updates.

Next supply is scheduled for December 9 (by Japan). There is a tentative SpaceX supply scheduled for January 22 next year, followed by the next Progress resupply set for February 2, after which Orbital (Cygnus) is scheduled to resupply the Space station March 9.

Orbital, SpaceX and Progress have all suffered several lunch failures/issues in recent years.