Russia: Space cargo ship has crashed due to a malfunction

[kebob]

Source: The Associated Press

By NATALIYA VASILYEVA
Dec. 1, 2016 1:13 PM EST

MOSCOW (AP) — An unmanned Russian cargo space ship crashed Thursday en route to the International Space Station due to an unspecified malfunction, the Russian space agency said.

Roscosmos said in a statement that the Progress MS-04 cargo craft crashed at the altitude of 190 kilometers (118 miles) over the remote Russian Tyva region that borders Mongolia. It says most of the space ship's debris burnt up as it entered the atmosphere.

The Progress lifted off as scheduled at 8:51 p.m. (1451 GMT) from Russia's space launch complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, to deliver 2.5 metric tons of fuel, water, food and other supplies. It entered an orbit nine minutes later and was set to dock with the space station on Saturday.

Roscosmos said the craft was operating normally before it stopped transmitting data 383 seconds after the launch. The Russian space agency would not immediately describe the cause of the malfunction, saying its experts were looking into it.


Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/b1b34f0547d14607b30db4b9e706ce5e/russian-supply-ship-launched-international-space-station

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That could just as easily have been a manned mission with Americans on board. Russian technology is crap!

[sylvanus]

1. Well it could've been an American Rocketship with Russian, wait Ha Ha,

thats right, we don't really do space anymore. You mean the Russian's who were the first to
put a lander on Mars and take pictures. The only ones to put a lander on Venus and take pictures.
The ones who supply the space station, oh yeh, they suck.

But we're going to Mars, Yeh!!!!

[AtheistCrusader]

3. SpaceX will be moving people to the ISS once the Dragon passenger capsule is approved.

Basically like getting something through FDA approval, it takes time.

[jmowreader]

6. Assuming Elon Musk's business empire doesn't collapse from lack of funds first

Musk is one of the few people who's better at bleeding capital than Donald Trump. I know he's great at making things...problem is, he sucks at making money and, eventually, the people who are pumping greenbacks into his science projects are going to stop doing it.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. A very real risk, sadly.

[harun]

10. Due to 401k in flow to Corporate Bond funds he won't be running out of capital

Can't sell corporate bonds if corporations don't need money.

Elon is more than happy to spend it for them.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. Space travel is dangerous. Shit happens.

Roscosmos is doing a damn fine job, sorry if you're bitter about it.

[rickford66]

5. "crash" implies hitting something.

It seems more probable there was an explosion. Some debris will certainly remain in orbit and will have to be tracked and avoided by other space craft.

[AtheistCrusader]

9. That long into the flight, it probably hadn't reached a stable orbit yet. Won't be up there long, if

it even completes a couple orbits.

[royable]

8. Wouldn't it be better stated that the cargo craft malfunctioned at an altitude of 190 km

since it wouldn't have crashed until it reached an altitude of zero kilometers? Unless it crashed into something ELSE up there, I suppose, but the event is currently just being described as a malfunction.

[awoke_in_2003]

11. "Russian technology is crap!"

No, not really. Hell, Russian rockets are the only ones putting our astronauts into space. Launching rockets is a risky business, whomever is doing it.