Russian spaceship crashes back to Earth

RUSSIA: An unmanned Russian spaceship with tonnes of cargo for the International Space Station crashed into Siberia shortly after blast-off Wednesday in the latest blow to the country’s embattled space programme.

The unprecedented accident raised concerns over the reserves of the six crew members on board the station and clouded the future of an ISS programme that relies on Russia exclusively following the retirement of US shuttles. Both Russian officials and NASA said the current team - which besides three Russians includes two US astronauts and a spaceman from Japan - had at least two months of supplies and there was no need to jump into the two evacuation craft on board the ISS.

But the disaster came especially hard for a Russian space programme that has suffered five previous launch failures in the past nine months and lost its most advanced commercial satellite shortly after blast-off last week. AFP