A Russian Soyuz rocket with three astronauts bound for the International Space Station was aborted at the last minute on Thursday morning, March 21.
Knewz.com has learned the abort was triggered by an automatic system shortly before engine ignition, but why that happened remains unclear. Unconfirmed reports say there was a drop in battery voltage.
The liftoff was due to take place at 9:21 a.m. EDT from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. On board were NASA astronaut Tracey Caldwell Dyson, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus.
However, during the live video commentary during countdown, at T-20 seconds to liftoff, NASA spokesperson Rob Navias said, “The Soyuz launch to the space station has been aborted. So, no visitors to the International Space Station (ISS) today.”
Space.com reported that Navias later said the abort was “triggered by an automatic system shortly before engine ignition; two umbilical connections were retracted away from the rocket ahead of the planned launch.”
On X, space reporter and author Anatoly Zak posted a picture of the mast already separated from the rocket and wrote, “If I am not mistaken, the lower umbilical tower of the #Soyuz rocket should normally retract at T-15 seconds, so if the launch abort took place at T-20 seconds, as NASA says, this mast was still supposed to be connected to the rocket.”
He also updated on X that he had heard Russia’s space agency “Roscosmos head Borisov now says, the Soyuz MS-25 launch attempt was aborted today due to a voltage drop in a battery.”
Shortly after the abort, Roscosmos, sent engineers to ensure the rocket and the crew were safe and determined they were. “The vehicle is safe, all fueling operations have ceased,” NASA’s Navias said. “All safety commands have been provided onboard the rocket so there’s no danger to the crew. They’re perfectly safe.”
Prior to the abort, NASA said that Dyson, Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya would travel to the ISS on a two-orbit, three-hour trajectory and dock at the station’s Prichal module at 12:39 p.m.
Dyson was slated to spend six months on the ISS as the flight engineer for Expedition 70 and 71, while Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya were due to spend 12 days on the ISS before returning home on April 2, to Kazakhstan.
Roscosmos stated that another attempt is tentatively scheduled for launch on Saturday, March 23. However, NASA said engineers with Soyuz rocket maker Energia will first need to determine why the launch was aborted and fix any issues that may be required.
According to Space.com, Russia’s Soyuz rockets and Soyuz spacecraft regularly fly cosmonauts and astronauts to and from the ISS and that an abort such as this one, just moments before takeoff. is extremely rare.
In October 2018, a Soyuz rocket had an in-flight abort, forcing the crew’s capsule to tear away from the rocket and make a harrowing emergency landing. NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin were safe. It was later determined the abort was caused by a deformed sensor on the rocket.
Meanwhile, another launch to the ISS is set to take place Thursday in Florida. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket without any crew, and a Dragon cargo ship are scheduled to launch more than two tons of fresh supplies to the ISS from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The launch was scheduled for 4:55 p.m. EDT.
The post Russian Rocket Launch Scrubbed: International Space Station Mission Halted With 20 Seconds to Go, Cause Under Investigation appeared first on Knewz.
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Author: Kelly Hartog
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