Launch of cargo spacecraft Progress MS-10 to ISS set for 16 November

The cargo spacecraft Progress MS-10 will be launched to the International Space State (ISS) on November 16, Roscosmos’s Executive Director for Manned Programs, Sergei Krikalyov, has confirmed.

Earlier, a source in the space rocket industry told TASS the cargo vehicle’s launch was scheduled for November 16. “Three unmanned launches are to be made before the next manned mission. One has been carried out from Plesetsk already (a Defense Ministry satellite was orbited on October 25). Another one will be from Kourou. And a third of the cargo spacecraft Progress, originally due on October 30, had to be postponed till November 16 due to a thorough examination of the launch vehicle and its maintenance,” Krikalyov said at a special meeting timed for the 55th anniversary of the Biomedical Problems Institute.

The need for three unmanned launches emerged in the wake of the abortive launch of the Soyuz-FG rocket carrying the manned spacecraft Soyuz MS-10 from Baikonur on October 11. The rocket was to deliver to the ISS Rosmcosmos’s Alexei Ovchinin (Soyuz-MS-10 commander) and NASA’s Nick Hague. The crew remained unhurt and was rescued. It was the first manned space launch emergency in 35 years.