"We trust our rocket," says the crew before the first launch in space since the failure

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A US astronaut said Thursday that she was confident in the safety of the Russian Soyuz rocket that will propel a crew of three people into space next month at the first launch of this type since an incident.

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and US and Canadian astronauts Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques are due to embark on the International Space Station on December 3rd, after a similar launch on October 11th ending with an emergency landing. .

Two minutes after the launch, a rocket broke down, forcing Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin and American astronaut Nick Hague to abandon their mission and return to Earth in a capsule that lands in the Kazakh steppe. Both were unharmed.

Speaking at a press conference in Star City, near Moscow, McClain said that occasional failures were inevitable, but that the incident with the Soyuz-FG in October had demonstrated the reliability of its emergency security mechanisms.

"We trust our rocket. We are ready to fly, "she told the conference, which was also attended by her colleagues Kononenko and Saint-Jacques.

"Many people have called it an accident or an incident, or perhaps wanted to use this example as an example of security, but for us it's exactly the opposite because our friends have come home," he said. McClain told reporters.

Russian investigators said the rocket failure was caused by a damaged sensor during the assembly of the Baikonur cosmodrome in the Soviet era, where McClain, Saint-Jacques and Kononenko were to be launched. .

Before the start of their mission, a cargo carrying unmanned rockets is to be launched on 16 November. This will be the first takeoff of Soyuz-FG since Baikonur since the accident.