Dan Broadbent
Russian officials have announced why the Soyuz MS-10 capsule failed to make it into space to resupply the International Space Station last month, resulting in an in-flight abort and ballistic re-entry. I wrote about the failure here at that time:
The crew launched at 4:40 am Eastern time (2:40 pm local time in Russia) with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin onboard. NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, were planning for the pair to rendezvous with the three astronauts currently aboard the International Space Station, however a malfunction during the launch prevented that.
Today, officials in Russia said that a sensor failed to function correctly, which prevented liquid oxygen from venting, causing the side booster to impact the core stage of the rocket, rupturing a fuel tank and causing the rocket to spin. The 2-person crew of MS-10 survived a ballistic descent where they were subjected to 6-7 Gs, and landed safely.
Watch the full video, which shows the side booster colliding with the core stage of the rocket, here:
Thank you for watching!
