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Oct 11, 2018

Almost like Columbia: Two crew members dodge death by an inch in botched Russian space launch

Posted by in category: space

Today’s launch abort was the first ever failure of the Soyuz FG launch vehicle, since it started in service in 2001.


A botched launch of the Russian spaceship Soyuz narrowly avoided becoming the latest fatal space incident on Thursday. Rescue systems managed to save the lives of two crew members and conduct an emergency landing.

The Soyuz-MS-10 spacecraft was meant to deliver Roscosmos’ Aleksey Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague, members of Expedition 57/58, to the International Space Station (ISS). But 119 seconds after take-off from the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan the Soyuz-FG launch vehicle experienced a malfunction and crew rescue protocols were engaged.

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