Engulfed in a brilliant shroud of flame, an unmanned spacecraft plunged to Earth in a scheduled descent and burn-up on August 17.

Aboard the International Space Station (ISS), European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Alexander Gerst and his Russian cosmonaut peer Maxim Suraev snapped photos of the ethereal event over the Pacific Ocean east of New Zealand. The remote-controlled SS Janice Voss, a Cygnus space vehicle made by private American company Orbital Sciences Corporation, had delivered supplies to the ISS earlier this month as part of the Orb-2 mission.

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The photos show pieces of the automated craft after it broke apart while shooting across the southern Pacific skies at 9:15 AM Eastern Daylight Time, according to Orbital Sciences representatives.

"From start to finish, we are very pleased with the results of this mission," Mr. Frank Culbertson, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Orbital's Advanced Programs Group said in a statement. "Our team is proud to be providing essential supplies to the ISS [International Space Station] crew so they can carry out their vital work in space."

The Orb-2 mission began on July 13 when Orbital's Antares-type rocket launched the SS Janice Voss Cygnus cargo ship into orbit from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (called "MARS") located at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Eastern Virginia. The carft which carried 3,669 pounds of cargo and science payloads, berthed with the ISS three days later on July 16. Prior to its departure from the station, the astronauts loaded the cargo module with approximately 3,550 pounds of items for disposal. 

The cargo vessel was named after American astronaut Janice Voss, who passed away from breast cancer at the age of 55 in 2012. The SS Janice Voss is the second of eight Cygnus freighters servicing the ISS. A controlled burn-up in the upper atmosphere is standard procedure for such vehicles. 

TagsInternational Space Station, ISS, Orbital Sciences Corporation