Dramatic on-board video shows moment of Soyuz booster failure on October 11, 2018

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November 01, 2018

New video released by the Russian space agency Thursday shows the moment a Soyuz rocket ran into trouble around two minutes after liftoff with a two-man crew Oct. 11, when one of the vehicle’s four first stage boosters crashed into the Soyuz core stage.

Image above: The Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft launched Oct. 11, 2018, with Expedition 57 crew members Nick Hague of NASA and Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos. During the Soyuz spacecraft’s climb to orbit, an anomaly occurred, resulting in an abort downrange. The crew was quickly recovered in good condition. Image Credits: NASA/Roscosmos.

An on-board safety system immediately detected the malfunction, triggering an automatic abort with escape rockets that pushed the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft with Russia cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague safely away from the rocket.

The crew landed downrange on the steppe of Kazakhstan after the first use of the Soyuz crew escape system since 1983.

The video from a rear-facing camera on the Soyuz-FG rocket shows the kerosene-fueled launcher lifting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, followed by a sped-up video sequence during the rocket’s initial climb. The video then reverts to a real-time sequence before the separation of the four strap-on boosters from the core stage.

Dramatic on-board video shows moment of Soyuz booster failure

The boosters are supposed to separate simultaneously, but one of the units appears to cling to the center stage in the video, before colliding with the core section, causing the rocket to veer out of control.

Russian investigators announced Thursday that the Oct. 11 failure was caused by a “deformed” sensor in the booster separation system. Read more details in our full story on the investigation’s results.

Roscosmos. Press-conference on the findings of the State Committee investigation of the Soyuz failure of October 11, 2018: http://en.roscosmos.ru/20752/

Related articles:

Rocket Investigation Complete; Russia, Japan Announce Mission Updates:
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2018/11/rocket-investigation-complete-russia.html

Crew in Good Condition After Booster Failure:
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2018/10/crew-in-good-condition-after-booster.html

Soyuz MS-10 – Emergency landing after a failure:
https://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.com/2018/10/soyuz-ms-10-emergency-landing-after.html

Related links:

Roscosmos investigator report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzLBGGsOOps&t=31s

Roscosmos statement: https://www.roscosmos.ru/25664/

Roscosmos: https://www.roscosmos.ru/

NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/

Image (mentioned), Video, Text, Credits: Roscosmos/NASA/Spaceflight Now.com/Stephen Clark.

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