Manned Soyuz space mission aborts during launch

October 12, 2018

Soyuz, a manned Russian space mission bound for the International Space Station (ISS) for a six-month stay, was forced to abort by a booster rocket failure Thursday morning. Rescue teams successfully recovered both crew members, Russian cosmonaut and United States astronaut, shortly after they landed safely in Kazakhstan.

About two minutes after launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which took place at 8:40 on Thursday, a problem arose with the rocket boosters attached to the, during the process of booster separation. As the abort rocket system had been jettisoned a few moments earlier per normal launch procedure, the crew used the 's steering rockets to direct the spacecraft into a descent trajectory. During the descent, Ovchinin and Hague reportedly were subjected to forces of six to seven times Earth's gravity. Ovchinin and Hague were safely recovered along with the spacecraft's descent module about east of, Kazakhstan, and  from the launch site, approximately an hour and a half after lift-off. Both were taken to a hospital in, Kazakhstan, for overnight observation as a precaution.

The incident, which is only the third mishap involving a manned Soyuz rocket since 1975 and the first since 1983, neither of which resulted in a fatality, comes nearly a month and a half after ISS mission controllers detected an air leak aboard the capsule presently docked at the ISS. Astronauts later found the leak to be the result of a drilled hole in the capsule's wall before repairing it. Shortly after Thursday's abort, the Russian government announced the formation of a state commission to investigate the launch failure.

Director General of  tweeted, "To clarify the cause of the accident at the Soyuz-FG LV, by my decision, a state commission was formed [...] Telemetry is being studied. Rescue services work [sic] from the first second of the accident. The emergency rescue system of the Soyuz-MS ship worked normally. Crew rescued."

Ovchinin and Hague were due to join the crew of aboard the ISS in, which would have brought the current ISS crew from three to five. The next manned Soyuz launch to the ISS,, was originally slated for December, though it is now unclear when that mission will be launched, pending the Russian investigation.