Russia's Progress Cargo Capsule to Burn up in Earth's Atmosphere Soon

Russia's space agency Roscosmos has confirmed that its crippled unmanned cargo spacecraft Progress will disintegrate Thursday night or early Friday morning, RIA Novosti reported.

According to Roscosmos, the stricken spacecraft was expected to burn up on re-entry in the Earth's atmosphere with just a few small pieces likely to survive the heat to hit planet's surface.

They should be similar in size and nature to those that fall to Earth when a Progress spacecraft normally burns up in the atmosphere after making a successful delivery to the International Space Station (ISS), Roscosmos added.

Progress was carrying 2.5 tonnes of supplies for the ISS, including scientific equipment, replaceable parts for the station's life support systems and a stockpile of water and oxygen.

The Progress M-27M cargo capsule spun out of control as it entered orbit April 28 following liftoff from Kazakhstan on a Soyuz rocket.

However, after launch, flight controllers lost control of the spacecraft, which had entered the wrong orbit, wasn't transmitting data, and was spinning fast.

The following day, Roscosmos declared the spacecraft a loss and gave up trying to control it. Russia's Energia space corporation has said the loss of the cargo vessel did not endanger the ISS or the work of its crew.

The European Space Agency (ESA) said earlier on Thursday that there were "some first indications that the likelihood for a reentry over North America or Europe has dropped significantly."