Russian cargo spaceship fails to dock with ISS

MOSCOW - Russian cargo spaceship Progress M-06M, which blasted off two days ago from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, failed to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) Friday night, the Mission Control Centre said.

The centre said there was “uncontrollable rotation” during the docking attempt, but there was no emergency situation on board the spacecraft.

“Everything was all right at first, and the freighter started to approach the station. Something happened and it passed by,” Valery Lyndin, spokesman for the centre, was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

Efforts to correct the situation have failed even after switching to the tele-operator control mode, which is the manual mode operated by the astronauts themselves.

The ship was “moving away” and running ahead,” ISS commander Alexander Skvortsov told the Mission Control. “I can’t see the freighter, it’s gone ahead.”

There could be possibly another attempt to dock Sunday, the Mission Control said.

The spaceship was scheduled to deliver 2.5 tonnes of fuel, oxygen, scientific equipment, video and photo equipment and food and water to the ISS crew.