MOSCOW, March 21. /TASS/. The Soyuz MS-25 manned spacecraft, whose flight to the International Space Station is scheduled to begin on Saturday, will most likely travel under the two-day scheme rather than under the super-short two-orbit scheme, space exploration historian Alexander Zheleznyakov told TASS.
"No, it will hardly be possible [to use] the super-short flight scheme, [because it depends] on the day of the launch. Once a super-short flight option is chosen, ballistic parameters have to be calculated. Today’s flight was tailored for this opportunity. Once a launch is postponed to a reserve date, which in this case is March 23, previous ballistic parameters will no longer be suitable," the expert said.
Zheleznyakov estimates the Soyuz MS-25 spaceflight to take two days.
"If the launch takes place on Saturday, the two-day scheme will most likely be used to approach [the ISS]," he said.
The launch of a Soyuz-2.1a rocket with the Soyuz MS-25 crewed spacecraft was aborted 20 seconds before liftoff from the Baikonur space center. The spacecraft was supposed to take the 21st mission to the International Space Station. The aborted launch was caused by voltage failure in the chemical energy source, Roscosmos CEO Yury Borisov said.
In the history of modern Russia, manned launches have never been cancelled when a crew was already inside a spacecraft. In the USSR, this happened only once, in 1969, with the Soyuz-4 launch, which was manned by cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov.