No Reports of Damage, Casualties on Ground After Progress Fragments Fall

There have been no reports of damage or human casualties on the ground as a result of the fall of fragments of a Russian Progress space freighter in southern Siberia on Thursday, a source in the Russian space industry said.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The source told RIA Novosti that some fragments of the Progress MS-04 cargo spacecraft fell about 60-70 kilometers (some 40 miles) west of the town of Kyzyl in southern Siberia.

"This mountainous area is scarcely populated…There have been no reports of damage or human casualties on the ground, while witnesses report seeing a 'meteorite shower,' the source said.

According to the source, the cause of the incident with the Progress spacecraft was most likely the failure of the third-stage engines of the Soyuz-U carier rocket, as the launch control specialists lost telemetry with the space vehicle around 382 seconds into the flight, after the first and second-stage engines had completed their work.

Russian space corporation Roscosmos confirmed earlier on Thursday the loss of a Progress space freighter after a faulty launch from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan.

The spacecraft was carrying more than 2.6 metric tons of food, fuel, and supplies for the Expedition 50 crew aboard the ISS.