Russian spacecraft cannot access the space port

Russia's Progress cargo ship Progress could not dock at the International Space Station (ISS), so it was waiting in space to retry in the next few days, the US and Russian space agencies have just announced.

Photograph of shooting the Progress M-13M spacecraft launched from
center of Baikonur universe in Kazakstan in 2010. (Source: AFP)

"The Progress 47 spacecraft re-task mission has been postponed due to a problem with the new Kurs-NA coupling system , " NASA announced on its website.

A spokesman for the Russian Flight Control Center confirmed that the cargo ship Progress M-15M was unable to dock in the space port, but the agency did not provide further details.

The docking mission should have been done at 1:58 GMT (near 9am this morning in Vietnam time), the Center said.

NASA said the ship was at a safe distance, located under the ISS for 1.8 miles and will try to reconnect later this week after Japan's cargo ship HTV-3 arrived on July 27 as planned.

In recent times, the Russian space program has repeatedly encountered technical problems, causing damage to some satellites and spacecraft, including the Progress cargo ship.

Currently there are 6 astronauts living and working on ISS, the outpost is 350km from the earth.