Launch of Russian spacecraft with 3 crew members is canceled – 03/21/2024 – Science

The takeoff of a Russian Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft was canceled at the last minute this Thursday (21), according to the Russian space agency Roscomos. It contained three crew members who were destined for the International Space Station (ISS).

This is a new setback for the Russian space sector, which has been facing funding problems, corruption scandals and failures for several years, such as the loss of the Luna-25 lunar probe in August 2023.

Soyuz MS-25 was about to take off at 10:21 am this Thursday (Brasília time) when the cancellation was announced.

The crew of the Russian spacecraft is made up of NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson, veteran Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitski and Marina Vasilevskaia, the first Belarusian cosmonaut.

“There was an automatic cancellation of the launch,” said the flight controller in a live broadcast by Roscosmos, seconds before the spacecraft took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan.

The commentator from the American space agency, who was also showing the launch live, stated that “the activation of the engine sequence normally expected for the moment did not occur”, 20 seconds before takeoff.

“An automatic order to abort the countdown was issued, which terminated the launch,” he added.

According to Roscosmos director Yuri Borisov, the cause of the interruption was a voltage drop in a battery.

The new launch attempt will be next Saturday (23), at 9:36 am (Brasília time).

“Nothing serious happened, although the situation is unpleasant. The crew is in perfect condition,” Borisov said.

Another Roscosmos official, Sergei Krikalev, said the crew was safe, abandoned the ship and transferred by bus.

Series of setbacks

The Russian space sector, historically the country’s pride, has suffered several embarrassing setbacks in recent years.

Three Russian space vehicles docked to its segment of the ISS have suffered leaks in recent months. In August, the first Russian probe sent to the Moon since the days of the USSR fell on lunar soil.

The series of failures has not deterred the ambitions of Moscow, which wants to end its participation in the ISS after 2024 to focus on building its own space station.

The Russian space sector is also limited by its lack of innovation, as most of its systems are based on Soviet technologies that are generally reliable but obsolete.

For a long time, Soyuz spacecraft were the only way to reach the ISS, but Roscosmos has faced competition in recent years from private companies such as SpaceX, owned by billionaire Elon Musk.

Russian-Western cooperation in the space sector has also been hampered by the Russian offensive against Ukraine, launched in February 2022, and the sanctions that followed.

The ISS is one of the few remaining areas of cooperation between Russia and the United States.

The Soyuz spacecraft, whose takeoff was aborted this Thursday, was supposed to dock with the Prichal module, which in turn docked with the Nauka module, linked to the Russian segment of the ISS.