The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft launched to the ISS on the second attempt

The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft with a crew of three people successfully launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to the International Space Station (ISS). This was reported by Roscosmos.

The ship will deliver Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, Belarusian cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya and American astronaut Tracy Dyson to the ISS. The spacecraft's docking with the orbital station is planned in two days. Novitsky and Vasilevskaya will return from the ISS to Earth on April 6.

The launch was completed only on the second attempt. Initially, the ship was supposed to launch to the ISS on March 21, but the launch was canceled just 20 seconds before it began. According to cosmonautics historian Alexander Zheleznyakov, this is the first time in the history of Soviet and Russian cosmonautics when the launch was canceled so little time before the end of the pre-launch countdown.

“This has never happened before. In the history of Russian cosmonautics, launches of manned spacecraft were never canceled just before the “start” command. There were other excesses, but there were no such incidents. It happened with unmanned ones, but not with manned ones,” said Zheleznyakov.

The reason for the cancellation of the launch was a voltage drop in the chemical current source, Roscosmos reported . The head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, compared this malfunction to a “battery boiling” in a car.

After the successful launch, Borisov announced a minute of silence in memory of the victims of the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall on March 22 in Moscow. “Allow me, on our behalf, we will convey sincere words of condolences to family and friends,” he said.

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