NASA expects Soyuz flights to the International Space Station to resume in December, following a scary launch incident

Russian engineers have a "very, very good idea" about the problems that occurred when Soyuz was launched on the International Space Station on October 11th, forcing the perform an emergency abortionNASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Tuesday. He added that he expects the Russians to resume Soyuz-led flights in December.

"Although our astronauts and cosmonauts are safe at home, they are not happy," said Bridenstine at a meeting of the National Space Council chaired by Vice President Mike Pence. "They want to be part of the International Space Station and can not wait to get back to it, so we are grateful for their enthusiasm, NASA is regrouping, we are planning again and we are preparing to leave again. . "

Soyuz MS-10 commander Alexey Ovchinin and NASA flight engineer Nick Hague were forced to cancel their launch to the station when one of the four rockets on the first floor of the Soyuz aircraft FG, normally reliable, crashed at the base of the second stage main vehicle. during separation two minutes after take-off.

The Soyuz ship's crew computer detected the problem and launched thrusters to quickly move the gear away from the faulty rocket. Ovchinin and Hague landed approximately 250 miles from the launch site. But abortion has cast a key in the station's carefully planned crew rotation schedule and, although Ovchinin and Hague should fly again, it is unclear when.

The Russians and their international partners are more immediately concerned about when the Soyuz rocket will be allowed to resume flights. A Russian "commission of state" investigating the accident is expected to report on its findings by the end of the month.

Similar versions of the rocket are expected to fly in the coming weeks to launch a polar-orbiting weather satellite from Kourou, French Guiana, a supply vessel for the Progress space station from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and a Russian navigation satellite from the Plesetsk cosmodrome.

All these rockets use identical or similar phase 1 separation systems and if these three flights are successful, Russia could proceed to the next launch of a space station crew as early as 3 December.

"We have a number of Soyuz Russian rocket launches in the coming months and in December we are fully planning to place our crew on a Russian Soyuz rocket for launch again to the International Space Station," said Bridenstine. "We have a very good idea of ​​the problem, and we are about to understand it better so we can run it again with confidence.

"It's important to note that even though it was a missed launch, it was probably the most successful unsuccessful launch you could imagine."

Hague and Ovchinin had hoped to join the Commander of the Expedition 57, Alexander Gerst, Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev aboard the station. Gerst and his teammates were launched aboard the Soyuz MS-09 space shuttle last June and originally planned to return to Earth on December 13th.

Three new crew members – Oleg Kononenko, Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques and NASA astronaut Anne McClain – were due to be launched on December 20, joining Ovchinin. and The Hague aboard the laboratory complex.

Now, because of the abortion launch, the Russians must launch the Kononenko crew before the scheduled time. Taking flight in the first week of December, the new crew would have time to hand over control before helping out Gerst and his teammates by December 20. They must leave no later than early January, otherwise their Soyuz will exceed its capacity. certification in orbit.

With the departure of Gerst, Auñón-Chancellor and Prokopyev, the crew of Kononenko will have the station for himself until April, by which time another Soyuz crew must take off.

The initial flight plan included the departure on April 5 of Oleg Skripochka, Christina Koch of NASA and a visiting astronaut from the United Arab Emirates. The UAE astronaut would then return to Earth about 10 days later with Hague and Ovchinin. Thanks to this interruption of flight, we do not know who will be going to the station next spring or how the flights will be organized.

In the short term, NASA hopes to continue launching a Northrup Grumman Cygnus cargo ship over an Antares thruster from Virginia in mid-November, followed by the launch of a spacecraft vessel. SpaceX Dragon supply over a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in December.

Two NASA space exits aimed at installing a second set of batteries for the space station 's solar power system are on standby, but will likely be carried out after the arrival of the aircraft. Kononenko's crew in December.

An exit into the Russian space of Prokopyev and Kononenko to inspect the Soyuz MS-09 ferry is scheduled to take place during the crew handover period in December. A small leak in the spacecraft was detected and repaired in September and the Russian engineers want to determine the extent of the damage and know if they were intentionally caused by a deliberate act during the treatment of l & # 39; craft.