Russia searches for crashed space ship

Russian authorities are using helicopters to search for the wreckage of an unmanned supply ship that crashed and exploded in a forest in Siberia.

Russia’s General Prosecutor’s Office said today about 40 lumberjacks were working in the thick forest of the Choisky region in Russia’s Altai province where the Progress ship blew up yesterday.

It said that “individuals gathering pine nuts” may have been in the area where emergency workers are looking for the crash site and wreckage amid thick fog.

The ship was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan some 900 miles south west of the crash site. It fell after the third stage of its booster rocket failed a few minutes into the launch.

The ship was carrying almost three tons of supplies to the International Space Station. The rocket failed barely a month after Nasa’s final space shuttle flight.

The Russians will be transporting astronauts to the space station until US private industry can pick up the human load.

While the International Space Station has more than enough supplies, the accident threatens to delay the launch of the next crew, just one month away.

That is because the upper stage of the unmanned rocket that failed is similar to the ones used to launch astronauts to the station.

Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, said that the accident “would have no negative influence” on the station crew because its existing supplies of food, water and oxygen are sufficient. There are six astronauts aboard.