I'm no astronaut

But it seems to me that if the spacecraft broke up into dozens of pieces, that really can't be called a "successful reentry."

Europe's unmanned space cargo vehicle successfully reentered the atmosphere over the south Pacific Ocean Sept. 29, breaking up into dozens of fragments that fell into the ocean along a pre-selected path that had been cleared of maritime traffic, European Space Agency (ESA) officials said.

But really that was what they expected it to do, so it actually was successful but you would think they could have come up with better language.