A botched Soyuz launch has dealt significant damage to Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome spaceport in Kazakhstan, leaving the nation without the ability to launch astronauts to the International Space Station until repairs are completed.
The November 27 launch saw the Soyuz MS-28 crew and spacecraft successfully travel to the aging orbital outpost. However, as NASASpaceflight reports, drone footage shows the platform’s mobile maintenance cabin lying upside down inside the flame trench, an enormous concrete-lined ditch to redirect the rocket’s flames, suggesting it slid off the platform and plummeted down to its demise.
Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, later confirmed “damage to a number of elements of the launchpad,” in a statement.
“An assessment of the state of the launch complex is being conducted now,” the statement reads. “All the necessary reserve elements are there to restore it and the damage will be eliminated very soon.”
It’s a significant development, considering that only Russia’s Soyuz and SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft are currently able to deliver astronauts to the space station — a major setback that could force NASA to adjust its plans, since it still sometimes contracts Russia to transport its astronauts to the ISS.
As NASASpaceflight points out, the Baikonur Cosmodrome is Russia’s only certified launch site for crewed missions to space. Two other launch platforms are either at an unsuitable latitude or not certified for crewed flights.
It also won’t be able to send Progress cargo ships to the space station until the launchpad is fixed — including the Progress MS-33 mission, which has been delayed from December 21 to sometime next year.
The collapsed maintenance cabin provides access to the Soyuz rocket’s first and second stage engines. It’s also where the launch team prepares for liftoff.
Experts told NASASpaceflight that the cabin is beyond repair and will have to be replaced. Two similar cabins that were recently produced for other Soyuz launch complexes took two years to complete. However, sources told the outlet that Roscosmos may have existing spare parts. Chances are, the spaceport may be out of commission for at least a few months.
The next crewed mission to the ISS from Baikonur is scheduled for July 14, giving Roscosmos some wriggle room. But it remains to be seen whether the Progress MS-33 mission will be postponed or not. It’s also unclear if either of the two other Soyuz platforms will be modified, let alone certified in time, for crewed flight.
While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has greatly strained already tense US-Russia relations, space has remained one of the few areas of peaceful cooperation between the two. But the latest incident could complicate matters further, making it even more difficult to staff a space station that’s scheduled to be retired a mere four years from now.
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