MOSCOW. Feb 20 (Interfax) - The damaged Progress MS-21 resupply spacecraft, which undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday, has been sunk in the Pacific Ocean, Russia's Roscosmos space corporation said.
"Today, the Progress MS-21 spacecraft was de-orbited, entered the atmosphere and disintegrated. The elements of its structure, which did not burn, fell down in a non-navigable area of the southern part of the Pacific Ocean," the state corporation said.
It was initially planned to sink the Progress MS-21 on February 18.
On Saturday, Progress MS-21 undocked from the Poisk small research module of the Russian segment of the ISS.
After the Progress MS-21 spacecraft had moved away from the ISS, cosmonauts Sergei Prokopyed and Dmitry Petelin remotely piloted it from the ISS in order to turn it around to photograph and record a video of the presumed area of the leak in its external hull.
Roscosmos said later that its specialists analyzed the footage and found no visual damage on the spacecraft. In this light, the space corporation postponed the sinking of the cargo spacecraft for further clarification of the reason why it depressurized.
The main operative team of the management of the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation subsequently made a decision on the de-orbiting of the Progress MS-21 spacecraft on February 19.
On February 11, Roscosmos said that a heating agent was leaking from the thermoregulation system of the Progress MS-21 spacecraft docked with the ISS.
Roscosmos Executive Director for Manned Space Programs Sergei Krikalev likened the depressurization of the Progress MS-21 spacecraft to the situation surrounding the leak in the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft in December 2022.
"Most importantly, we need to make sure this is not a systemic mistake, or else it may create a similar problem in other ships," he said.
On February 13, Roscosmos head Yury Borisov said that a meteorite or space debris may have caused the spacecraft's depressurization.
On February 14, NASA specialists examined the area of presumed damage using a video camera of a robotic arm and shared their findings with their Russian counterparts for further analysis.
The Progress MS-21 resupply ship docked with the ISS in October 2022 and delivered over 2.5 tonnes of cargo.