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Roscosmos ready to increase insurance of new manned launch to ISS 2.4-fold

The insurance coverage will reach $72.86 mln

MOSCOW, November 20. /TASS/. The Center for Ground-Based Space Infrastructure Operation announced a tender for insuring risks for Soyuz-FG rocket launches with Soyuz MS-11 manned spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) and docking to the station, according to the public procurement website.

The insurance coverage will reach 4.786 bln rubles ($72.86 mln), the initial contract price - 344.653 mln rubles ($5.2 mln).

Head of Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said earlier that Russia’s commission on manned space flights has approved the launch of a Soyuz MS-11 manned spaceship with a new crew to the International Space Station (ISS), which is scheduled for December 3. "The commission on manned space flights had a meeting yesterday. We decided to approve the launch of the Soyuz MS manned spaceship on December 3," he said.

The new crew to be sent to the ISS onboard the Soyuz MS-11 manned spaceship are Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA and Canadian Space Agency astronauts Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques. Their flight was originally scheduled for late December but was rescheduled for December 3 due to the abortive launch of the Soyuz-FG carrier rocket.

 

Soyuz abortive launch

 

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 safely in the Kazakh steppe. The crew was not hurt. This was the first emergency situation with the launch of a manned spacecraft over the past 35 years.

The incident-probing commission announced on November 1 that the emergency situation occurred after "a nozzle cover on the oxidizer tank failed to open due to the deformation of the separation contact sensor."

The sensor was damaged during the assembly of the rocket’s first stage at the Baikonur Cosmodrome.