Russia recorded an unprecedented incident in history: Bad news arrived 5 seconds before G

According to experts, this is the "first incident in the history of Russian aerospace" .

MK newspaper reported on the evening of March 21 that the launch of the Soyuz-2.1a booster rocket carrying the Russian Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft was canceled "just 4-5 seconds before launch".

Space historian Alexander Zheleznyakov said that being forced to cancel the launch of a manned spacecraft just before launch was "the first incident that happened in the history of Russian aerospace".

"In the history of Russian aerospace, there has never been a case of canceling the launch of a manned spacecraft right before the "start" directive was given. There have been other incidents, but the An incident like this has never happened to a manned ship" - Mr. Zheleznyakov said.

Simulation of a Russian rocket launch. (Photo: Bing Chat).

Previously, according to plan, the launch of the Soyuz-2.1a booster rocket was scheduled to take place at 4:21 p.m. on March 21 Moscow time to put the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft into orbit.

The ship's crew includes Oleg Novitskiy (Russian), Marina Vaselevskaya (Belarusian), Tracy Dyson (American). If the mission is successful, Vaselevskaya will become the first Belarusian woman in history to set foot in space.

Novitskiy and Vaselevskaya will perform a mission on the ISS international space station for 12 days and return to Earth on April 2 by Soyuz MS-24 (the ship is being docked with the ISS) with astronauts. American Loral O'Hara - who has been on the ISS since September 15, 2023. Pilot Dyson is expected to return later.

Mr. Yuri Borisov - head of the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos said, "an unusual situation occurred in the final stages of launch preparation (Soyuz-2.1a rocket)".

"During the final stage of preparation before launch, an unusual situation occurred. The entire process was interrupted. The cause was determined to be a voltage drop of the chemical power source" - Mr. Borisov told reporters.

The launch plan has been postponed to March 25, at 15:36 Moscow time.

Lenta quoted expert opinions as saying that the emergency cancellation of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket launch caused many problems, such as the need to discharge fuel and oxygen. This problem is unlikely to be fixed in the next 24 hours.