Russia's Progress M-14M cargo spacecraft has been sent on its final journey to the waters of the Pacific Ocean, Mission Control said on Saturday.
Fragments of the spacecraft that did not burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere splashed down into a spacecraft cemetery in a non-navigational area of the Pacific at 6:39 p.m. Moscow Time (14:39 GMT) and sunk.
The Progress M-14M undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on April 19 to conduct a nine-day Radar-Progress experiment to define the physical characteristics of the ionosphere environment around the spacecraft caused by the operations of its liquid propellant engines.
With a record of more than 130 launches since 1972 and only one failure, Progress-family freighters remain the backbone of the Russian space cargo fleet. In addition to their main mission as cargo spacecraft, they are used to adjust the space station’s orbit and conduct scientific experiments.
