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   In this photo dated Tuesday, Nov, 29, 2016 the Soyuz-FG rocket booster
   with the Progress MS-04 cargo ship is installed on a launch pad in
   Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The unmanned Russian cargo space ship Progress MS-04
   broke up in the atmosphere over Siberia on Thursday Dec. 1, 2016, just
   minutes after the launch en route to the International Space Station due
   to an unspecified malfunction, the Russian space agency said.(Oleg Urusov/
   Roscosmos Space Agency Press Service photo via AP)

   MOSCOW (AP) — An unmanned Russian cargo spaceship heading to the
   International Space Station broke up in the atmosphere over Siberia on
   Thursday due to an unspecified malfunction, the Russian space agency said.

   The Progress MS-04 cargo craft broke up at an altitude of 190 kilometers
   (118 miles) over the remote Russian Tuva region in Siberia that borders
   Mongolia, Roscosmos said in a statement. It said most of spaceship's
   debris burnt up as it entered the atmosphere but some fell to Earth over
   what it called an uninhabited area.

   Local people reported seeing a flash of light and hearing a loud thud west
   of the regional capital of Kyzyl, more than 3,600 kilometers (2,200 miles)
   east of Moscow, the Tuva government was quoted as saying late Thursday by
   the Interfax news agency.

   The Progress cargo ship had lifted off as scheduled at 8:51 p.m. (1451
   GMT) from Russia's space launch complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, to
   deliver 2.5 metric tons of fuel, water, food and other supplies. It was
   set to dock with the space station on Saturday.

   Roscosmos said the craft was operating normally before it stopped
   transmitting data 6 ½ minutes after the launch. The Russian space agency
   would not immediately describe the malfunction, saying its experts were
   looking into it.

   This is the third botched launch of a Russian spacecraft in two years. A
   Progress cargo ship plunged into the Pacific Ocean in May 2015, and a
   Proton-M rocket carrying an advanced satellite broke up in the atmosphere
   in May 2014.

   But both Roscosmos and NASA said the crash of the ship would have no
   impact on the operations of the orbiting space lab that is currently home
   to a six-member crew, including three cosmonauts from Russia, two NASA
   astronauts and one from the European Union.

   Orbital ATK, NASA's other shipper, successfully sent up supplies to the
   space station in October, and a Japanese cargo spaceship is scheduled to
   launch a full load in mid-December.

   NASA supplier SpaceX, meanwhile, has been grounded since a rocket
   explosion in September on the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The
   company hopes to resume launches in December to deliver communication
   satellites.

   ___

   This version corrects the spelling of the region to Tuva, not Tyva.

   __

   Aerospace Writer Marcia Dunn in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Vladimir
   Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.
