Russian Soyuz Rocket Launch Aborted Last Minute Before Sending 3 Astronauts to ISS

Space News ,Russia :-  On Thursday, a Soyuz rocket was all set to carry three astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). But just as the crew was waiting inside, there was a rare event – the launch was suddenly called off.

This happened only 21 seconds before the rocket was supposed to blast off. The crew included NASA astronaut Tracey Caldwell Dyson, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya from Belarus. They were supposed to go to the ISS from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The launch was scheduled for 9:21 a.m. EDT (1321 GMT).

A NASA spokesperson, Rob Navias, announced the launch abort during live commentary. He said, "So, no visitors to the International Space Station today. The next opportunity to launch, pending resolution of what happened today, would be Saturday morning."

Navias mentioned that no reason had been given for the abort. He explained that an automatic system caused the abort just before the engines were supposed to ignite. Two umbilical connections, which are like tubes that supply things to the rocket, were pulled back from the rocket just before launch. Engineers from Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, quickly went to the launch pad to make sure everything was safe and that the crew could come out.

Navias assured everyone that the crew was safe. He said, "The vehicle is safe, all fueling operations have ceased. All safety commands have been provided onboard the rocket so there's no danger to the crew. They're perfectly safe."

The news of the launch abort was radioed to astronauts aboard the ISS. Flight controllers made it clear that the Soyuz crew was safe. Station commander Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency replied, "Most importantly, Station copies crew are safe."

Soyuz rockets are regularly used to transport astronauts to and from the ISS. This incident of an abort just before launch is very rare. The last time such an event happened was in October 2018 when a Soyuz rocket carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin faced an in-flight abort. The crew had to make an emergency landing. That abort was traced back to a sensor issue.

The three astronauts – Dyson, Novitskiy, and Vasilevskaya – were supposed to join the ongoing crew on the International Space Station. Dyson and Novitskiy planned to spend six months aboard the space station as part of its Expedition 71 crew, while Vasilevskaya was set to stay for 12 days and then return home with the outgoing Expedition 70 crew.

But now, it's unclear when they will be able to launch. Roscosmos has said that the next window for launch will open on Saturday. However, engineers need to understand why the launch aborted and fix any issues before that.

Meanwhile, in Florida, another rocket is getting ready to launch to the ISS. An uncrewed SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo ship are scheduled to launch more than 2 tons of fresh supplies to the ISS from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The launch is set for 4:55 p.m. EDT (2055 GMT) and should proceed as planned, according to Navias.

NASA and SpaceX will provide a livestream of the cargo launch, starting at 4:35 p.m. EDT (2035 GMT).