Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, has not provided immediate details regarding the timing of the next launch attempt following the aborted mission.
The launch of three astronauts to the International Space Station was abruptly aborted by Russia just moments before liftoff on Thursday. Despite the cancellation, officials confirmed the safety of the crew, comprised of NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, Oleg Novitsky of Roscosmos, and Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus. The mission, scheduled to take off from the Russian-leased Baikonur launch facility in Kazakhstan, was intended to be carried out by a Russian Soyuz rocket.
The launch was called off by an automatic safety system approximately 20 seconds before the scheduled liftoff, which was set for 1321 GMT. Although no immediate cause was provided, NASA assured that the crew was unharmed and would be swiftly extracted from their Soyuz capsule.
Roscosmos hasn’t immediately said when the next launch attempt will be made.
The space station, which has served as a symbol of post-Cold War international cooperation, is now one of the last remaining areas of collaboration between Russia and the West amid tensions over Moscow’s military action in Ukraine. NASA and its partners hope to continue operating the orbiting outpost until 2030.For Dyson, it was to be her third trip to the orbital complex, where she was due to spend six months. Novitsky, who was to make his fourth flight to the orbiting outpost, and Vasilevskaya, on her first space mission as her country’s first astronaut, were set to return to Earth after spending 12 days in orbit.
The three astronauts were to join the station’s crew consisting of NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and Alexander Grebenkin. Russia has continued to rely on modified versions of Soviet-designed rockets for commercial satellites, as well as crews and cargo to the space station.
Hague and Ovchinin had a brief period of weightlessness when the capsule separated from the malfunctioning Soyuz rocket at an altitude of about 50 kilometers (31 miles), then endured gravitational forces of 6-7 times more than is felt on Earth as they came down at a sharper-than-normal angle. The 2018 launch failure was the first such accident for Russia’s manned program in over three decades.
