Perfect fiery 'death' for Orbital cargo ship

Washington - Orbital Sciences Corporation's unmanned Cygnus cargo ship disintegrated as planned on Sunday as it re-entered Earth's atmosphere after a month-long resupply mission to the International Space Station.

The spacecraft had been released from the orbiting lab on Friday at 06:40 (10:40 GMT), and then stayed in independent orbit for two days, before firing its engines and pushing into Earth's atmosphere.

The de-orbit burn had been scheduled to take just under 30 minutes.

The crew on board the space station watched and documented the spacecraft's plasma trail, posting pictures of the comet-like streak to Twitter.

Cygnus launched on 13 July and arrived at the ISS three days later, bearing a load of 1 657kg of gear, food and science experiments.

The resupply mission was part of a billion dollar contract with Nasa for multiple journeys to the ISS.