Russia’s Progress 59 spacecraft disintegrates above the Pacific Ocean

Progress 59, the Russian spacecraft that was meant to restock the International Space Station last week but suffered a critical malfunction, has fallen out of orbit and disintegrated in the Earth's atmosphere.

The Progress resupply ship was launched from Kazakhstan on April 28 atop a Soyuz rocket. Soon after the Progress craft separated from the third-stage booster, "an unspecified problem prevented Russian flight controllers from determining whether navigational antennas had deployed and whether fuel system manifolds had pressurized as planned," reported NASA at the time. Russian mission control tried to get everything under control, but it was ultimately unsuccessful.

The video below, shot by the ship's engineering camera, shows Progress 59 spinning wildly through space as a result of the critical failure. For it to dock safely with the International Space Station, it should have been gliding very smoothly through space-so when HQ couldn't regain control, the mission was called off indefinitely.

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