Russians Lost Contact With Their Spaceship - And Now, It's Hurtling Towards Us
When you think about it, the goal of space organizations is mainly to
shoot giant hunks of metal up into the air — but are there procedures
in place for when one of those hunks come hurtling back down to the
ground?
According to NASA, the Russian cargo ship Progress 59 is
making progress in the wrong direction, breaking from orbit and heading
for our planet's surface. While some of it may burn up in the
atmosphere, it's likely that some of the fragments will plummet down to
Earth.
Progress 59 launched from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome with the intention of sending supplies to the International Space Station.
However, once the unmanned ship reached its orbit, it lost contact with ground control and started spinning. The spinning is causing the ship to tumble toward Earth.
If Russian flight controllers don't gain control of the ship within a week, it's possible that large fragments from the ship will hit the Earth's surface.
Here is footage of the Progress 59's terrifying death spiral.
Luckily, the ISS has enough food and water that they can live
healthily for months without Progress 59's help. The real danger is for
us still living on the planet, since we might have to contend with what
remains of the cargo ship once it finds the Earth's gravity again.
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