Three crew members are safe after an automatic abort halted their scheduled launch to the International Space Station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The crew, consisting of NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus, were expected to lift off aboard a Roscosmos Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft.
Twenty seconds before the planned launch time, an automatic abort was triggered due to a failure of the second umbilical, or service tower, to initiate an engine sequence start on the Soyuz rocket. The reason for this failure is currently unknown, as stated in a NASA broadcast of the launch.
Following the abort, all fueling operations were stopped, and safety measures were implemented to ensure the crew's well-being. The crew was informed that they would not be launching to the space station at that time.
The crew's next opportunity for launch is scheduled for Saturday morning, pending resolution of the issue that caused the automatic abort. Engineers are working to determine the cause and address it before the next launch window.
It remains uncertain whether the abort will impact the launch of a separate cargo resupply mission from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is set to carry new science investigations, food, supplies, and equipment to the space station on that flight.
As the broadcast of the attempted Soyuz launch concluded, servicing towers were being raised to extract the crew from the rocket and return them to their quarters. Once rescheduled, the crew will join the astronauts and cosmonauts already aboard the space station.
