According to Moscow’s space agency Roscosmos, a Russian launch facility in Kazakhstan sustained damage during a spacecraft launch that sent Russian and American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).
At 12:28 p.m. Moscow time (09:27 GMT) on Thursday, the combined Russian-US Soyuz MS-28 mission, which was carrying NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos astronauts Sergey Mikaev and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, departed the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
The crew on board the ISS was in good health when the spacecraft safely docked later that day, the ISS stated on social media.
However, Russia’s state space agency reported that “damage to a number of elements of the launchpad” had been found after examining the Baikonur Cosmodrome after the launch.
“An evaluation of the launch complex’s condition is currently underway,” Roscosmos stated.
It stated, “The damage will be removed very soon and all the necessary reserve elements are there to restore it.”
But according to Russian space bloggers, the damage at the Baikonur Cosmodrome—Russia’s sole crewed mission launch site, situated in the Russian-leased city of Baikonur in Kazakhstan—is worse than the government is saying.
Georgy Trishkin, a Russian rocket launch expert, stated shortly after the morning launch that “the service cabin [had] collapsed” and that a portion of the structures had fallen on launchpad 31, inflicting significant damage that would temporarily halt operations.
Vitaly Egorov, a Russian space journalist, also called attention to damage that was evident at the launch site during the official broadcast.
There was a large metal structure in the gas exhaust tray beneath the launc hpad that wasn’t supposed to be there, he claimed.
According to Egorov, Russia will have “lost the ability to launch people into space” for the first time since 1961 if the Baikonur Cosmodrome is shut down as is suspected.
The Soyuz crew is expected to return to Earth in July 2026 after spending 242 days at the ISS. Over the duration of the eight-month mission, some forty scientific experiments and two extravehicular activities will be carried out.
Once a source of pride for the country, Russia’s space program has suffered from years of persistent underfunding and corruption scandals.
Space remains one of the few surviving areas of US-Russian cooperation, despite the nearly total collapse of relations between Washington and Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine.
However, as part of the numerous sanctions imposed on Russia as a result of the conflict, the United States and other Western nations have terminated various collaborations with Roscosmos, even though they have continued to work together.
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