\n A launch pad at Russia\u2019s main space complex was damaged during Thursday\u2019s launch of a mission carrying two Russians and an American to the International Space Station, Moscow\u2019s space agency announced.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft successfully docked with the space station and the three crew members had boarded, Roscosmos said.\n <\/p>\n
\n But a post-launch inspection at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan revealed \u201cdamage to several elements of the launch pad,\u201d according to a statement from Roscosmos, which still uses the space facility in its former Soviet neighbor.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cAn assessment of the condition of the launch complex is currently underway,\u201d it said, adding that all parts needed to repair the pad are available.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe damage will be repaired in the near future.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The launch pad contains support systems for the rocket and a structure that allows cosmonauts to access their capsule as it sits atop a Soyuz rocket.\n <\/p>\n
\n Launch pads must be capable of withstanding extreme heat, air pressure and vibrations as a rocket takes flight.\n <\/p>\n
\n Russian analysts said repairs to the launch pad could take a week or longer. And any lengthy delay could leave Russia unable to launch missions to the space station, they said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIn the worst case this could seriously affect the rotation of crewed missions and cargo flights to the ISS,\u201d analyst and blogger Georgy Trishkin wrote on Telegram.\n <\/p>\n
\n Typically, ISS crew are launched roughly every six months from Baikonur.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis is the only launch pad Roscosmos uses for the ISS program, and in the future it was supposed to be used for launches to the Russian Orbital Station,\u201d commentator Vitaliy Egorov wrote on Telegram.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cIn effect from this day Russia has lost the ability to launch humans into space, something that has not happened since 1961. Now it will be necessary to quickly repair this launch table or modernize another one,\u201d Egorov wrote.\n <\/p>\n
\n Besides Russia\u2019s Soyuz craft, NASA uses SpaceX\u2019s Dragon spacecraft to take crew to the ISS.\n <\/p>\n
\n The three men aboard the mission that lifted off Thursday join seven other crew already orbiting on the ISS.\n <\/p>\n
\n Three are scheduled to return to Earth by December 8, according to NASA.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A launch pad at Russia\u2019s main space complex was damaged during Thursday\u2019s launch of a mission carrying two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[61,60,82,247],"class_list":{"0":"post-164400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}