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NASA chief says agency plans to launch crew on Soyuz in December
Less than two weeks ago, a Soyuz rocket took off with a Russian cosmonaut and a NASA astronaut riding in a Soyuz capsule. The launch proceeded normally for about two minutes until the rocket experienced a problem, and one of the Soyuz's emergency escape systems fired automatically and pulled the crew vehicle away from the booster. After a few seconds of rapid acceleration, the crew capsule carrying Aleksey Ovchinin and Nick Hague made a relatively normal, safe return to Earth.
[...] On Tuesday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine felt confident enough in the Russian investigation to declare that the next crewed Soyuz launch will occur in December. "We're fully anticipating" putting a crew on that rocket, he said at a meeting of the National Space Council. Investigators have a "really, really good idea" about what occurred during the errant launch earlier this month, he said.
Moreover, Bridenstine praised the reaction of the Soyuz capsule to the rocket error and its life-saving features that protected the crew members on board. "While this was a failed launch, it was probably the single most successful failed launch we could have imagined," Bridenstine said.
Three unmanned flights of the Soyuz will occur before the planned crewed launch to the ISS.
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday October 24 2018, @03:24PM
My understanding is that this rocket is not in production any more and is being replaced by a new one. They still have under 10 (don't remember the exact number) rockets and plan to launch 3 of them unmanned before the crewed flight. There are also reports of video surveillance equipment being installed; they do suspect sabotage, it seems.
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