Hole in Soyuz MS-09 Hull Could Have Been Drilled Before Launch - Deputy PM

11:03 GMT, 2 November 2018

The day before, the chairman of the emergency commission assigned to investigate the incident said that the accident involving the Soyuz-FG was caused by a faulty sensor on one of the rocket's side blocks during the disengagement from the central block.

Sputnik

The hole in the hull of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft could have been drilled before the launch at the Baikonur space center, Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin told Sputnik.

"We deny that this could have been done at the Moscow plant. Baikonur remains as an option, or some exotic versions," Rogozin said.

On October 11, a Soyuz-FG launch vehicle with two members of the new crew for the International Space Station on board failed to reach its destination, becoming the first failure of a manned space launch in modern Russian history.

Russian cosmonaut and mission commander Alexei Ovchinin and US astronaut flight engineer Nick Hague ejected in an emergency capsule, landed in Kazakhstan, and were soon rescued.

Cause of Soyuz-FG Launch Failure Revealed - Probe Commission

1 November 2018, 09:16 GMT

The next planned Soyuz spaceflight will take three people, including Russian commander Oleg Kononenko, and flight engineers Anne McClain (USA) and David Saint-Jacques (Canada) to the ISS on December 3. Last week, Saint-Jacques said the October 11 emergency abort made him feel "even more confident" about the design of the Soyuz spacecraft and its emergency systems. "It's a dangerous job. We expect that there's a risk. We expect that not every launch is going to be perfect," the Canadian astronaut said, speaking to Space.com.