Russia today suspended the launch of the Soyuz MS-2 spacecraft5 with three crew members on board, including the first Belarusian cosmonaut, Marina Vasilevskayaon the way to the International Space Station (ISS), as reported by the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
The cancellation came when the Soyuz was already on the launch pad for departure at 13:21 GMT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan using a Soyuz 2.1a launch vehicle. Roscosmos stated that the launch interruption occurred “automatically” as soon as the ship’s engines were ready to take off and gave off smoke.
“Attention. There was an automatic flight cancellationTo. Return the units of the starting complex to their initial state. Prepare for parking for 24 hours,” the Russian agency reported during the live broadcast. The Soyuz MS-25 was originally scheduled to launch on March 13th.
A Soyuz rocket the Russian government wanted to start this Manned spacecraft Soyuz MS-25 to International Space Station This Thursday. The mission was to carry Russian commander Oleg Novitsky, Belarusian flight engineer Marina Vasilevskaya and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson into orbit for a while Long distance flight on the space station.
NASA released the first images of the event this morning, showing the three equipped members.
The start was originally planned European Spring 2024, as announced Roscosmos Executive Director for Manned Space Programs Sergei Krikaliov in February 2023. But a failure of the Soyuz S-22 spacecraft, which lost airtightness in one of its systems while docking with the ISS, led to the postponement of the mission. The Soyuz S-22 spacecraft had to return to Earth without a crew and changed the flight plan. Vasilevskaya’s escape was agreed in April 2022 by Russian President Vladimir Putin with his Belarusian counterpart and main ally Alexander Lukashenko.