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ROCKET BLAST
Incredible moment British pilot, 29, films Russian ROCKET soar past his plane as it launches into space
Watch the incredible video of the Progress MS-29 zooming across the sky
A BRIT pilot narrowly avoided a near miss when a Russian rocket zoomed across his flight path over Kyrgyzstan.
Alex Robertson, 29, was flying at 32,000ft when he spotted the Progress MS-29 speeding along from his cockpit.
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It came on the same night Vladimir Putin launched the new Oreshnik hypersonic missile.
Clips of the rocket launch were also wrongly shared on social media as showing the new weapon tearing across the sky.
Incredible video appeared to show the unmanned cargo vehicle, modelled on the Soyuz range, on its way to resupply the International Space Station (ISS).
Mr Robertson, from Beccles, Suffolk, believed it was about to exit the Earth’s atmosphere after launch as he piloted a commercial courier flight.
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He said: “It popped up out of nowhere and I watched it race past.
“The capsule detached and fell to the ground and in the video you see it flash when it hits the ground.
"That was strange as it shouldn’t have fuel in it to explode.
“I believe that it has just been launched and was heading for space.
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“In the video, you can see the first stage separation of the bottom of the rocket and then the discarded first stage explodes as it hits the ground while the rocket continues its journey to space.”
It was filmed around 12.30pm on Thursday over Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan, central Asia, just south of Almaty in neighbouring Kazakhstan.
Various clips captured the moment the space rocket was seen hurtling across the sky.
At one point in the video, a vapour ring appears as the rocket rips through the night sky.
Another angle shown from almost directly beneath the rocket shows the wide vapour trail being left by the ship.
The Progress MS-29 was the first cargo to fly in space and return freight back to Earth thanks to its Raduga capsule.
Lift off for its 182nd flight was beamed live around the world on the Russian Federal Space Agency’s TV Roskosmos.
The rocket, developed by the Soviet Union and first launched in 1978, has been delivering essential supplies to astronauts on the ISS since 2000.
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It was modelled on the Soyuz crew spacecraft but streamlined for carrying cargo by removing life-support systems and a heat shield.
The Progress weighs around seven tonnes, has a length of 7.9metres and can carry around 2.5 tonnes of food, water, oxygen, fuel and scientific gear.
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