Russian supply rocket fails to reach orbit

The brief statement from the Russia’s Roscosmos space agency did not specify whether the Progress supply ship launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome had been entirely lost but confirmed the third stage of the rocket firing the ship into space had failed at 325 seconds into the launch.

It was carrying more than 2.5 tons of supplies, including oxygen, food and fuel.

Since the ending of the US space shuttle programme, Russian spaceships are the only supply link to the space station which has six astronauts aboard – Russians Andrei Borisenko, Alexander Samokuyayev and Sergei Volkov, Americans Michael Fossum and Ronald Garan and Satoshi Furukawa of Japan.

Russian space analyst, Sergei Puzanov said the station had supplies already aboard that could last two to three months and “the situation with the loss of the Progress cannot be called critical.”