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Russia to hold unmanned test launch before crew flies to space station

A source in the Russian space industry underlines the importance of elaborating a 'plan for removing the causes' of the incident

BAIKONUR, October 11. /TASS/. An unmanned test launch of a rocket will be required before the new crew travels to the International Space Station (ISS) after the failure of the Soyuz booster, a source in the Russian space industry told TASS on Thursday.

‘It is necessary to understand what happened and elaborate a plan for removing the causes of an emergency situation, then hold trials and after that launch this unmanned rocket and only after that the crew will set off. As soon as the picture becomes clear, the program of flights to the ISS will become understandable," the source said.

A Soyuz-FG carrier rocket with a manned Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft blasted off from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station (ISS) on Thursday. The carrier rocket with the manned spacecraft lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 11:40 a.m. Moscow time.

The manned spacecraft carried Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin (the commander of the Soyuz MS-10) and NASA astronaut Nick Hague.

The Soyuz booster aborted after its launch, after which the crew switched to the mode of a ballistic descent. The manned Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft landed in the Kazakh steppe..

As the press office of Russia’s Central Military District reported, rescuers evacuated the crew from the descent capsule and the crew members are in good condition.