Russian Progress space freighter lost

Jonathan Amos By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News
Progress The Progress resupply vehicle is an unmanned ship used to resupply the ISS
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An unmanned freighter launched to the International Space Station (ISS) has been lost.

The Russian space agency said the Progress M-12M cargo ship was not placed in the correct orbit by its rocket and fell back to Earth.

The vessel was carrying three tonnes of supplies for the ISS astronauts.

With the retirement of the US space shuttle, there is now a critical reliance on robotic freighters to keep the station supplied.

But with ample stores currently on board, the more pressing concern will be the status of the Progress freighter's launch vehicle - the Soyuz-U.

This is very similar to the Soyuz-FG rocket that is used to lift manned capsules to the station.

Until the cause of Wednesday's failure is firmly established, it is unlikely the next astronaut flight to the ISS, due on 22 September, will be allowed to proceed.

In that case, the crew already on the station and preparing to come home would be asked to stay up longer.

"The anomaly has only just occurred; there's quite a bit of work to do to sort through where we're at," said Mike Suffredini, the US space agency's (Nasa) ISS manager. "If things work out and it looks like the Soyuz will be able to fly then we'll let the crew on orbit stay until we do a normal rotation."

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