KOROLYOV /Moscow region/, November 16. /TASS/. Russia’s Soyuz-FG carrier rocket with the Progress MS-10 space freighter has blasted off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan, for the first time since the aborted launch in mid-October, a spokesman for the Russian mission control center said on Friday.
"The Soyuz-FG carrier rocket with the Progress MS-10 cargo spaceship has been launched from the Baikonur space center," the spokesman said.
The spaceship is to separate from the carrier rocket ten minutes after the takeoff to continue its flight to the International Space Station (ISS). The docking is scheduled for 22:29 Moscow time on November 18. The Progress spaceship is to deliver about 2.5 tonnes of various cargoes, including fuels, water and pressurized gases to the ISS.
The Progress spacecraft was originally scheduled to be launched to the ISS on October 30 but the launch was rescheduled for November 16 following the abortive launch of October 11.
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.