Unmanned Russian cargo spacecraft veers off from ISS mission: NASA

US space agency officials today said Russian efforts to salvage a resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) have failed and that the spacecraft will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.

A release by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said the cargo spacecraft has gone out of control but the six crew members on the ISS are safe.

''The six crew members of the International Space Station (ISS) are safe and continuing regular operations with sufficient supplies as Russian flight controllers plan for another attempt to communicate with a cargo resupply spacecraft bound for the station,'' the release stated on Tuesday.

The docking between the unmanned Progress 59 capsule, which began to malfunction after its successful launch on Tuesday, has been called off, NASA said in a statement. ''Russian flight controllers are continuing to assess the vehicle and what the plan going forward will be,'' the agency said.

The capsule, which typically wouldn't burn up entirely, is now expected to re-enter the atmosphere in the coming days, an astronaut on the international space station said. Controllers usually direct the capsule to re-enter the atmosphere above the South Atlantic to minimise the chance of any residual debris causing damage.

The ISS Progress 59 cargo spacecraft launched successfully from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 3:09 a.m. (1:09 p.m. in Kazakhstan) on a Soyuz rocket bound for the space station on Tuesday. Right after it separated from the Soyuz booster's third stage, an unspecified problem prevented Russian flight controllers from determining whether navigational antennas had deployed and whether fuel system manifolds had pressurised as planned, NSASA said.

When flight controllers initially could not confirm deployment of the antennas in the minutes following its launch, they selected the backup rendezvous plan of two days and 34 orbits instead of the planned four-orbit, six-hour rendezvous.

During the spacecraft's first four Earth orbits, the Russian flight control team made several unsuccessful attempts to confirm the status of the spacecraft's systems but were unable to receive telemetry from some spacecraft systems. As a result, ISS flight controllers informed the crew a docking attempt to the station has been postponed.

The spacecraft was not carrying any supplies critical for the United States Operating Segment (USOS) of the station. Both the Russian and USOS segments of the station continue to operate normally and are adequately supplied well beyond the next planned resupply flight. The next mission scheduled to deliver cargo to the station is the seventh SpaceX commercial resupply services mission targeted for launch no earlier than 19 June. It will carry about 5,000 pounds of science investigations and supplies.

The cargo of Progress 59 includes more than three tons of food, fuel, and supplies for the space station crew, including 1,940 pounds of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen, 926 pounds of water, and 3,128 pounds of spare parts, supplies and scientific experiment hardware. Among the US supplies on board are spare parts for the station's environmental control and life support system, backup spacewalk hardware, and crew clothing, all of which are replaceable.