MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Experts at the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan will dismantle the four strap-on boosters of the Soyuz-FG carrier rocket, which is scheduled for next launch in November, and re-inspect them in order to avoid launch failures similar to October 11 incident, a Baikonur source told Sputnik.
The rocket is expected to orbit the Progress MS-10 space freighter with supplies for the International Space Station (ISS).
“The specialists from the Progress Rocket and Space Center will disconnect all four lateral boosters of the launch vehicle from the central unit. After that, they will examine the connection points on the boosters. Then the reverse assembly will be carried out to re-connect the boosters with the central unit,” the source said.
On October 11, a Soyuz-FG launch vehicle failed to take the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft with the new crew of the International Space Station into space. This became the first failure of a manned space launch in modern Russian history. Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague managed to eject in a rescue capsule and make an emergency landing in Kazakhstan unharmed.
According to Sergey Krikalev, the executive director of manned space programs at Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos, one of the possible causes of the October 11 incident could have been the failure of a first-stage lateral booster to separate from the central unit.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
