Cargo spacecraft "Progress-MS 04"

Spacecraft nº:

Russian spacecraft nº:

Launch, orbit & landing data:

Mission Report:

• The Russian cargo spacecraft Progress MS-04 launched on December 01, 2016 at 14:51:52.474 UTC to deliver more than two and a half tons of food, fuel and supplies to the International Space Station crew. The unpiloted Russian freighter launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Due to a malfunction of the third rocket stage Progress did not reach the planned orbit and was lost.
  Russian mission control said on launch day an unpiloted Progress space station supply ship carrying nearly 5,400 pounds (2,450 kg) of rocket fuel, food, water and a new spacesuit burned up in Earth′s atmosphere shortly after it blasted off from Kazakhstan, and evidence points to a problem with the third stage of the cargo carrier′s Soyuz booster.
  Lost with the rest of the cargo was the first Orlan-MKS spacesuit (possibly serial No. 3).
  Engineers lost telemetry during the Soyuz rocket′s third stage engine burn, and most of the vehicle′s fragments burned up in the atmosphere, Roscosmos said.
  But Russian mission control lost contact with the rocket and its cargo payload at around T+plus 6 minutes, 22 seconds, according to Roscosmos. That was more than two minutes before the Progress spacecraft was to arrive in orbit.
  If all went according to plan, the Soyuz launcher should have deployed the cargo capsule into a preliminary orbit less than nine minutes into the flight. The Progress MS-04 spacecraft should have extended its power-generating solar panels and navigation antennas almost immediately after separating from the Soyuz upper stage.
  But "ratty" telemetry from the spacecraft left ground controllers struggling to verify the status of the Progress cargo freighter. Rob Navias, a NASA TV commentator covering the launch, reported there was some indication the Soyuz third stage and Progress supply carrier may have prematurely separated and the accelerating stage then crashed into the Progress. The spacecraft was scheduled to dock to the rear port of the space station′s Zvezda Service Module at 16:43 UTC on December 03, 2016.

External links:

• Russian Spaceweb: Progress Information