A new version of the cause of the Progress accident: the third stage of the rocket crashed into it

An Interfax source at the Baikonur Cosmodrome said that the accident of the Progress spacecraft launched on December 1 occurred due to a collision with the third stage of the launch vehicle. According to him, after the separation of the ship from the third stage, its engines for some reason continued to work, because of which it hit the cargo ship.

There is no official confirmation of this information.

On December 7, TASS, citing the Mission Control Center, reported that the accident occurred due to an emergency shutdown of the third stage engine . Subsequently, the MCC denied this report. Agency sources in the space industry spoke of poor build quality in the third stage engine.

• The Progress cargo ship, launched on December 1, was supposed to deliver fuel, water, food, medicines and scientific equipment to the ISS. It was not possible to put it into orbit: the ship burned up in the Earth's atmosphere; part of the debris fell in Tuva.
• Over the past few years, three Progress cargo ships have been lost. Two of them - in August 2011 and December 2016 - launched Soyuz-U launch vehicles into orbit. Another emergency launch - in May 2015 - was carried out using a Soyuz-2.1a launch vehicle. The cause of the accident in 2011 was called the poor-quality assembly of the third stage engine.