Roscosmos Launch To Space Station Canceled At Last Minute

A Soyuz rocket that was scheduled to launch to the International Space Station Thursday aborted its mission at the last second when the engine start sequence failed after the countdown, CBS News reported.

A statement from the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, simply said that “the launch of the space mission vehicle as part of the carrier rocket Soyuz-2.1A and transport cargo vehicle Progress MS-07 has been moved to reserve date of October 14, 2017.” Roscosmos gave no additional information about the reason for the aborted launch. When International Business Times reached out to NASA regarding the canceled launch the agency said it was not a NASA launch and to contact Roscosmos. A blog post from NASA said, “Roscosmos technicians in Baikonur are analyzing the cause of the scrubbed launch.”

The Progress MS-07/68P Russian cargo craft was filled with nearly three tons of food, supplies and fuel for the astronauts on the ISS and ready for a launch with the Soyuz rocket Thursday. The launch was scheduled for 5:32 a.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and was set to dock to the Russian segment of the station at 8:56 a.m. after two orbits of Earth, but at the last minute the launch was canceled.

Thursdays launch was going to allow for just two orbits before rendezvous because it was specially timed with where the station was in its trip around Earth, this also meant a small launch window. This was a trajectory that hasn’t been used before and was going to be a test for the rocket and cargo craft. A four-orbit track for crafts holding astronauts is routine as is the older method of upwards of 30 orbits. Now with a launch scheduled for Saturday, the cargo ship will have to do 34 orbits around the Earth to reach the ISS increasing the duration of the trip to nearly two days, according to CBS.

Since NASA retired the Space Shuttle program in 2011 it has relied on other space agencies to launch its astronauts and supplies to space. This is something Vice President Mike Pence commented on while at the first meeting of the National Space Council. He said the goal is to have NASA create its own means to reaching space through private partnerships like that with SpaceX. SpaceX is working on it’s first craft for bringing people to space and is looking to conduct its first launch of the Falcon Heavy in November.

It’s still unclear what caused the cancellation of the launch and therefor whether it’s realistic to expect a Saturday launch.