Russia plans to move up next launch to ISS after finding cause of October’s abort

Russian officials say they plan to move up the date of the next launch to the International Space Station now that they have determined why and how the aborted launch last month occurred.

On Wednesday, Russian officials confirmed that a malfunction sensor caused the first and second stages of the rocket launching their Soyuz spacecraft to the station to crash into each other, breaking the second stage and forcing an emergency landing.

On Thursday, Russia state space corporation Roscosmos announced that the sensor was damaged during the rocket’s assembly at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where the Soyuz is launched.

“The nozzle lid of the oxidizer tank in the block D did not open as a sensor of the stages’ separation was deformed (a 6-degree bend) during the assembly of the ‘package’ at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which was the cause of the off-nominal separation,” said Oleg Skorobogatov, deputy director of the Central Research Institute of Machine-Building who led the investigation into the failed launch.

In October, American astronaut Nick Hague, 43, and his crew mate, Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, were aboard Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft rocketing to the space station when the launch was aborted, forcing an emergency landing. It was the first aborted launch of a Soyuz spacecraft in 35 years. Both Hague and Ovchinin were safe and in good condition after the landing.

Roscosmos has developed a set of measures to make sure this doesn’t happen again, officials said.

And now that they know where and when this happened, Roscosmos said the commission investigating this matter has approved the next human spaceflight to the space station — originally intended to launch Dec. 20 carrying NASA’s Ann McClain — to occur Dec. 3.

Moving the next Soyuz launch up to Dec. 3  will allow the crew currently living on station, including NASA’s Serena Auñón-Chancellor, to return home Dec. 20, Roscosmos said.

NASA officials said the agency is  working closely with Roscosmos to move forward on crew launch plans.

“Roscosmos plans to launch the Progress 71 resupply mission on Nov. 16, and is targeting the launch of the Expedition 58 crew including NASA astronaut Anne McClain for Dec. 3, pending the outcome of the flight readiness review,” the agency said Thursday.

” NASA formed its own team to work alongside Roscosmos to gather insight from the investigation to inform NASA’s decision on launch readiness that will be made during the flight readiness review.”

NO FEAR: NASA astronaut Nick Hague ready to fly again after aborted Soyuz launch last week

Since NASA’s space shuttle program was shuttered in 2011, the agency has relied on Russia to ferry American astronauts to the station. NASA has spent billions of dollars on the space station in its 20-year lifetime, but the agency has no other way to reach it.

The failed mission earlier this month would have been Hague’s first spaceflight since being tapped as an astronaut in 2013. NASA officials aren’t sure when he will get to fly again, but Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Roscosmos, has said he and Ovchinin would get to fly again in spring 2019.

How that would work still is unclear. The Soyuz’ April 2019 launch already has an assigned crew and NASA has yet to offer insight into the development.

Russian officials still are investigating another Soyuz-related problem that occurred in August, when astronauts discovered an air leak-causing hole in a different Soyuz attached to the station. The hole was plugged, but Russia continues to investigate how it happened.

NASA expects that investigation to conclude in December.

Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at [email protected] or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.