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Three crew members are secure after their scheduled launch to the Worldwide Area Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan was robotically aborted Thursday morning, in response to a stay NASA broadcast.
NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus had been anticipated to carry off aboard a Roscosmos Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft at 9:21 a.m. ET and arrive on the area station about three hours later.
However 20 seconds earlier than the launch was to happen, an automated abort was triggered after the second of two umbilicals, or service towers, up in opposition to the aspect of the Soyuz rocket, did not provoke an engine sequence begin.
“We have no idea the explanation why at this level,” in response to a NASA broadcast of the launch.
The crew was knowledgeable by mission management shortly after the difficulty that they’d not be launching to the area station. All fueling operations had been ceased and security instructions had been enacted to forestall any potential hazard to the crew.
The crew’s subsequent alternative to launch is Saturday morning, however that relies on whether or not engineers can decide the reason for the automated abort and if it may be resolved in time.
At the moment, it’s unknown whether or not the abort will impression the launch of a separate cargo resupply mission, anticipated to launch at 4:55 p.m. ET from Cape Canaveral in Florida and dock on the area station Saturday morning. SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft will carry new science investigations, meals, provides and gear on that flight.
Simply earlier than the published of the tried Soyuz launch ended, servicing towers had been being raised subsequent to the rocket and crew capsule to allow engineers to extract the crew and return them to their quarters.
When the launch is rescheduled, Dyson, Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will journey be a part of NASA astronauts Loral O’Hara, Matthew Dominick, Mike Barratt and Jeanette Epps, in addition to Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and Alexander Grebenkin, who’re all already aboard the area station.