First launch of Soyuz-FG booster after Oct 11 incident scheduled on 16 Nov

The first launch of a Soyuz-FG booster after the October 11 incident has been scheduled for November 16 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, a source in the domestic space industry told TASS on Friday.

Another source in the Russian space industry earlier said that the launch of the Soyuz-FG booster had been scheduled for November 18.

"The launch of a Soyuz-FG booster with a Progress MS-10 resupply ship to the International Space Station is planned for November 16, at 00:14 a.m. local time in Baikonur (21:14 p.m. Moscow time)," the source said.
Soyuz aborted launch

A Soyuz-FG carrier rocket with a manned Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft blasted off from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome to the International Space Station (ISS) on October 11. On board the spacecraft were Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin (the commander of the Soyuz MS-10) and NASA astronaut Nick Hague.

Following a smooth liftoff, the Soyuz’s booster malfunctioned between the first and second stages of separating, whereupon the crew was forced to abort the flight and switch to ballistic descent. The manned Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft ended up landing in the Kazakh steppe.

The press office of Russia’s Central Military District reported that rescuers recovered the crew from the descent capsule. Later, the crewmembers were examined and found to be in good condition. After their medical check-up in the town of Baikonur, the astronauts were transported to Moscow.

This is the first emergency landing with this type of carrier rocket over the past 35 years.

NASA astronaut Nick Hague, who returned to Moscow from the Baikonur spaceport on October 12 after the Soyuz booster’s failure, flew to the United States on October 13.