Russian spacecraft set to crash back to Earth… near Margate!

PARTS of a Russian spacecraft hurtling towards Earth could crash into the seas just off the Kent coast this morning, experts have warned.

The £30million ship, which was last night spinning out of control at 17,000mph, is expected to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere shortly before 9am today. But there is a chance that some larger fragments of the seven-ton vessel will make it through the atmosphere and crash into the sea.

The North American Aerospace Defence Command predicts it will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere above the North Sea, close to the Thames Estuary. Based on its trajectory, they have plotted re-entry for 8.59am, 15 miles north of Margate in Kent and 20 miles south-east of Clacton in Essex.

However, because of the ship’s speed, a minor miscalculation could mean it actually ends up crashing into a spot thousands of miles away. The cargo ship blasted off from Kazakhstan on April 28, carrying supplies for the International Space Station. But it spun out of control after a communications failure moments after the launch, and for the last ten days has been hurtling around the Earth once every 90 minutes.

A Russian Space Agency spokesman said: ‘The space ship will completely burn up in the layers of the atmosphere and only a few small parts of its construction could reach the surface of our planet.’

The European Space Agency last night disagreed with Norad’s calculations and said the spaceship was more likely to hit the atmosphere either late last night or in the early hours of this morning. It said the likelihood for a re-entry over Europe had dropped significantly.