On August 24, a Progress M-12M space freighter carrying food and other items to the space station broke up over southern Siberia after failing to separate from its Soyuz-U carrierrocket, RIA Novosti reported.
The intention was to give the US a crew-carrier and rocket technology that could go beyond low-Earth orbit to more distant targets, back to the Moon and further.
The vehicle was dropped from a carrier aircraft high above California's Mojave Desert and ignited its rocket engine to go supersonic for a few seconds.