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A few minutes after takeoff on 11 October, a Soyuz rocket failed, sending the two astronauts on board in free fall, prompting a Russian inquiry into what was wrong.
Credit: NASA / Bill Ingalls
The Russian Space Agency's initial report Roscosmos on its investigation into the October 11 Soyuz crew's failed launch is expected to be completed by the end of the week, the agency said in a statement issued yesterday (17 October ).
The cosmonaut of the agency, Sergei Krikalev, responsible for manned space flights from the agency, also said at a press conference yesterday that Roscosmos would not launch another crewed flight as long as three unprepared launches would have been successful and the findings of the investigation would have been examined. The launch of October 11 was interrupted just minutes after takeoff due to a problem of separation of recalls, sending back the two astronauts on board collapsing on Earth.
"The Soyuz rocket will only be launched after the investigation has identified the causes of the emergency situation and measures have been taken to avoid such situations in the future", Krikalev told the Russian news agency TASS. Roscosmos chief, Dmitry Rogozin, opened the investigation immediately after the launch's failure. The investigation committee reviewed the telemetry data and the rocket fragments collected after the incident. [In Photos: Space Crew’s Harrowing Abort Landing After Soyuz Failure]
Roscosmos had already scheduled five Soyuz launches before the next crew launch: a cargo delivery to the International Space Station on October 30 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan; a meteorological satellite launch on 6 November in Kourou, French Guiana; an Egyptian Earth Observation satellite launched on November 22 from Baikonur; launch of a navigation satellite in November from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia; and the launch of two European satellites on December 14 in Kourou.
"Confirmations will be more than enough to send the next crew into space," Krikalev said of these launches, according to TASS. There are several varieties of Soyuz rockets. Only the Soyuz-FG model is certified to carry humans; this is the model that failed on October 11th. It would be used during the scheduled launch on 19 December to transport astronauts to the space station. Many of the unallocated upcoming launches are attributed to the Soyuz 2-1b models.
Throughout the launch failure incident, NASA personnel, including astronaut Nick Hague, who was aboard the failed launch, and the Administrator of the The agency, Jim Bridenstine, have expressed confidence that Roscosmos can investigate and resolve the cause of abortion and that American astronauts will return in Soyuz vehicles soon.
The officials also pointed out that the evacuation system was working perfectly well that it has not been used since 1983, thus enabling The Hague and its Russian counterpart Alexey Ovchinin to be safe.
Email Meghan Bartels at [email protected] or follow her. @meghanbartels. follow us @Spacedotcom and Facebook. Original article on Space.com.
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