The Progress is a Russian cargo vehicle

The Russian cargo vehicle Progress has failed to dock with the International Space Station after an apparent electronics failure.

There was a failure of "telemetry", effectively the radio contact needed to complete the docking, Nasa said.

The spaceship was carrying food, fuel and other supplies.

Unconfirmed reports quoting a Russian cosmonaut, Alexander Skvortsov, said the cargo vehicle was spinning out of control away from the space station.

Further attempts to dock with the space station have been ruled out for today, Nasa said.

The first docking attempt had been due to happen at 1658 GMT. The telemetry failure happened 25 minutes beforehand.

After the problem arose, the Progress was forced to make a "pass" of the space station. The gap between them is currently widening, Nasa said.

It has not yet been revealed what may have caused the equipment failure.