NASA said on Friday that a Russian Progress capsule, which went out of control earlier this week while on its way to the International Space Station, may get destroyed in the atmosphere after burning up as early as next week. It was launched on Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, but ground controllers soon lost contact with it. Engineers tried their every bit for more than a day to bring the ship to its original orbit, but in vain.

The capsule was loaded with more than three tons of cargo for the ISS. The capsule was awaited by six astronauts at the space station to restock their pantries and supply rooms. But, Progress-59 ended up adding to already existing space junk in space, with more than 500,000 man-made items circling earth.

Scientists are now investigating what led the resupply mission to become a fiasco. It has been learnt from preliminary findings that a problem occurred when the capsule separated from its Soyuz launcher. Debris orbiting the uncontrolled Progress capsule is among the evidence, reported the Air Force's Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC).

"The JSpOC has observed 44 pieces of debris in the vicinity of the resupply vehicle and its upper stage rocket body; however, it cannot confirm at this time if the debris is from the rocket body or vehicle itself", said the Air Force in a statement.

The Russian space agency Roscosmos said on Wednesday that flight controllers lost contact with the Russian space agency Roscosmos 1.5 seconds before it was set to separate from its launcher's third stage.

It won't be wrong to say that the failed resupply mission this week has once again exposed the reliance of International Space Station on a single Russian spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from orbit.