Russia’s Progress M-12M space freighter fell in South Siberia's Altai Republic, on Wednesday. The Soyuz-U carrier rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan and was scheduled to separate at 5:09 p.m. Moscow time [13:09 GMT]. A rocket engine failure is believed to have caused the accident. It is the first loss of the Progress freighter in the history of Russia’s space industry.
"The scheduled launches of the Soyuz rockets are likely to be suspended because of the space freighter accident. May be until the reasons of the accident are established," a source from the space industry, said.
Russia has carried out more than 130 successful launches of Progress space freighters since they entered service in 1972. This was the second spacecraft loss for the Russian space industry in within a week. On August 18, the Express AM-4 telecommunications satellite failed to separate from the Proton-M carrier rocket and could not reach the designated orbit.
The Progress freighter was insured for 3 billion rubles ($103 million). It was to deliver 2.7 tonnes of food, medical and scientific equipment, and other items to the International Space Station (ISS).
There are totally six cosmonauts working at the ISS. They are Russian cosmonauts Andrei Borisenko, Alexander Samokutyayev and Sergei Volkov, as well as NASA astronauts Ronald Garan and Michael Fossum and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa.
Incidentally, after the retirement of the U.S. shuttle fleet earlier this summer, Russian Soyuz craft became the only way for astronauts to reach the ISS.
