SPUTNIK / ALEXEY FILIPPOV
On October 11, a Soyuz rocket faced dalfunctions during the launch. The incident took place less than two minutes after the start.
The Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft atop the Soyuz FG rocket manned by a team of two cosmonauts was set to deliver a team to the International Space Station (ISS).
However, the crew was forced to make an emergency landing. The incident was caused an apparent malfunction of the booster some 119 seconds after liftoff.
“The crew has landed. All are alive,” Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin wrote on Twitter.
“The search and rescue teams have reached the Soyuz spacecraft landing site and report that the two crew members are in good condition and are out of the capsule. Search and rescue teams are with the crew now,” the NASA wrote on Twitter.
You can see how violent the cabin inside the #Soyuz gets right at separation. Wow. Camera feed cuts right after. Hoping for a safe return. #NASA pic.twitter.com/uQUzYd2LmI
— Ryan Romeike (@RyanRomeike) October 11, 2018
Expedition 57 was due to transport Roscosmos’ Aleksey Ovchinin and NASA’s Nick Hague to the ISS. The pair were due to deliver cargo and a Russian-made 3D bio-printer. The 3D bio-printer was set to be used to grow human organs and tissue in zero gravity.
“A state commission was formed by my decision to determine the cause of the Soyuz-FG carrier rocket accident. It has already begun work. Telemetry is being studied. Rescue services have been working from the first second of the accident. The Soyuz-MS spacecraft emergency rescue system worked properly. The crew was rescued,” Rogozin wrote on Twitter.
Accordign to repots in Russian media, a Roscosmos commission will carry out an inspection of the rocket space center where the rocket was produced.
The October 11-like incident is a sign of the existing personnel problems of the Russian hi tech industry, especially in the engineer staff and management.
Overnight on August 30, a drop in pressure due to an air leak was detected in Russia’s Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft docked with the ISS. The cause appeared to be a two-millimeter hole of the orbital compartment of the manned Soyuz MS-09 space vehicle. The cosmonauts had plugged the hole patching it up with several layers of epoxy resin and restored pressure aboard the space station.
Russia has set up a commission consisting of specialists from Roscosmos, the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation and the Central Research Institute of Machine-Building (TsNIImash) in order to investigate the incident.
