NORAD says third stage of rocket carrying cargo spacecraft burned in dense atmosphere

MOSCOW, April 29. /TASS/. The third stage of the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket that put the Progress spacecraft into undesignated orbit has burned in dense atmosphere, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) reported Wednesday.

According to American measurements, the object having No. 40620 in the US catalogue lost orbit.

Soyuz-2.1a blasted off from the Baikonur space site on Tuesday morning. After the cargo spacecraft's separation from the rocket reports arrived that two antennae of the approach and docking system had failed to unfold. Then it turned out that the spacecraft missed the expected orbit and entered an uncontrolled spin. Repeated attempts to establish communication with the spacecraft failed.

Roscosmos chief Igor Komarov told the media on Wednesday there were no chances for docking with the ISS. The spacecraft will be deorbited on May 5-7 to burn in the Earth’s atmosphere.