Russia cancels crewed spacecraft launch last minute

The launch of the Soyuz-2.1a rocket carrying the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to the International Space Station in Russia was cancelled at the last minute.

Source: Russian state-owned news agency Interfax with reference to the broadcast conducted by Roscosmos.

Quote: "Attention launch site. The launch has been automatically cancelled. Return the launch system into its initial state. On hold for 24 hours."

Details: The launch was scheduled for 15:21 (Kyiv time) on Thursday.

According to the report, the crew consists of Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, Belarus representative Marina Vasilevskaya, and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson.

The flight was scheduled to last approximately 3 hours and 19 minutes. According to Roscosmos, Novitsky and Vasilevskaya would spend 12 days on board the station before returning to Earth on 2 April on the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft with NASA astronaut Loral O'Hara, while Dyson would continue the flight until September, landing on Soyuz MS-25 with Roscosmos astronauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub.

According to Roscosmos, Dyson was scheduled to visit the ISS as part of a cross-flight agreement between the Russian Federation and the United States. This would be the third flight on the Russian Soyuz MS spacecraft as part of Roscosmos and NASA's cross-flight agreement to the International Space Station.

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