Ep. 25, Page 54

smbhax on April 29, 2015

Watch out, a Russian rocket is spinning out of control and will soon come crashing down to Earth!
Not to worry though, it probably won't hurt anyone. But it's true: Russian spacecraft Progress M-27M ‘out of control’ says the BBC. This was an unmanned rocket taking supplies to the International Space Station, but a problem came up when the cargo module tried separating from the booster, or something, and Russian mission control found the module spinning out of control, as you can see in the movie embedded in that article, taken from the module's onboard camera. Unable to control or maintain its orbit, it will inevitably come down, re-entering the atmosphere: “Russian news agency Interfax said it would re-enter between 7 and 11 May.”
Another Progress module burned up harmlessly in the atmosphere last yearthat one intentionally, to get it out of the way along with a cargo of trash from the ISSso this out-of-control one will probably not end up conking anyone on the head with falling space debris. And the ISS should have enough supplies to hold them until the next supply ship, although they're even lower than they'd usually be, since the American “Cygnus” module, made by Orbital Sciences Corporation (now OrbitalATK, after a merger with Alliant Techsystems in February), that was supposed to take them supplies last October blew up during launch. The next supply ship due to feed the station, on June 19th, is another commercial American model, a SpaceX “Dragon,” and hopefully that one will have better luckor they might have to start breaking out the emergency rations on the space station!