[Update 11:50 a.m. ET] A Russian space freighter carrying cargo to the International Space Station has crashed in a remote area of Siberia, Russian emergency officials said Wednesday.

The unmanned Progress cargo craft, which launched at 7 p.m. Kazakhstan time (9 a.m. ET) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, was due to dock with the ISS on Friday.

Rescue teams have been dispatched to the crash site of the Progress-M12M, the regional branch of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry told CNN.

Officials could not immediately confirm whether the crash might have caused any damage on the ground. Russia's Interfax news agency reported that the rocket had come down in the Altai region.

[11:11 a.m. ET] Russia's mission control has reported an abnormal situation with a space freighter that launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome bound for the International Space Station, NASA said Wednesday.

The rocket is carrying 2.9 ton of food, fuel and supplies, NASA said, but has no passengers on board.

The Progress 44 cargo craft, which launched at 7 p.m. Kazakhstan time, is due to dock with the ISS on Friday.

Mission Control Houston said it had received a report of an "off-nominal situation" during the rocket's third and final stage, at five minutes and 50 seconds after launch.

NASA spokesman Rob Navias, at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, told CNN that contact with the space craft had been lost about three minutes before it was to reach orbit.

"We have no confirmation of a crash from the Russians," he said.

Navias said the Russians launch a supply vessel roughly every three months.

The six people currently living on the ISS are "well supplied - actually oversupplied" since the delivery of goods by the final U.S. shuttle mission, carried out by Atlantis last month, he said.

NASA is now reliant on the Russian space agency to ferry U.S. astronauts to orbit, since the grounding of the U.S. shuttle fleet has left the United States with no way to lift humans into space.

Plans are in the works for private companies to begin shipping cargo to the station, and eventually to carry astronauts as well.

Progress-series space freighters have been the backbone of Russian space cargo operations for decades, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reports. In addition to taking supplies to the ISS, they have been used to carry out scientific experiments and help adjust the space station's orbit, the agency reports.

The Johnson Space Center in Texas is home to NASA's astronaut corps and trains astronauts from the United States and other nations.