An unmanned freighter launched to the International Space Station has been lost shortly after its launch.
The Russian space agency has confirmed the Progress M-12M cargo ship was not placed in the correct orbit by its rocket and fell back to Earth.
Interfax news reports the debris crashed in Siberia. The vessel was carrying some three tonnes of supplies for the ISS crew.
With the retirement of the US space shuttle, there is now a critical reliance on robotic freighters to keep the station supplied.
Progress was one of five current and future unmanned vessels tasked with the role.
It was the 44th such cargo delivery flight to the space station. The mission lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1300 GMT (5pm Moscow time) on Wednesday.
The BBC reports it appears the rocket's third and final propulsion stage system shut down early.
As a result, the Russian federal space agency (Roskosmos) said, the Progress vessel ''was not placed in the correct orbit''.
The failure occurred 320 seconds into the flight. Telemetry to both the Soyuz rocket and the freighter were lost.
The astronauts have plenty of supplies onboard. Last month's shuttle flight delivered sufficient food stores to maintain the ISS crew for a year.
''We're in a good position logistically to withstand this loss,'' said NASA ISS manager Mike Suffredini. ''We can go several months without resupply if that becomes necessary."
Third failure since December
The BBC reports this was the second Russian rocket failure in a week. On 18 August, a Proton vehicle put a telecommunications satellite in the wrong orbit. Another Proton also failed in December.
Progress uses a Soyuz-U rocket to get into orbit. The capsule that takes people to the ISS rides on a Soyuz-FG rocket. The upper-stages on the two types of rocket are very similar.
The next astronaut flight to the station is due to launch on 22 September.
