This helpful graphic tells the tale. I hope Elon does a 2025 update in January.
Posted on 11/28/2025 8:41:40 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Damage to a Russian launch site has stopped Moscow from sending people into space for the first time in over six decades, it has been reported.
Moscow’s space agency Roscosmos said that Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan had sustained damage during a launch on Thursday carrying Russian and American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).
But Russian space bloggers said the damage to Russia’s only launch site for crewed missions was more serious than authorities were claiming.
One expert, Vitaly Egorov, said if the damage is as suspected, Moscow will have lost the ability to launch people into space for the first time since it put the first human in orbit in 1961. Newsweek has contacted Roscosmos for comment.
It has played a key role in space milestones, including the launch of Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, in 1961 and so reports of its damage, and the halting of manned flights to space from the site, will deliver a blow to the prestige of Russia’s space program.
The ISS said that the spacecraft successfully docked later that day and posted an image on social media of the crew in space. However, Roscosmos said that there had been damage to a number of elements of launchpad Number 31, during takeoff.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
I say send Mark Kelly up there. One way.
The more experimental and unproven vehicle the better.
Anyone can go to space if you pay Elon to send you.
Finally the CIA did something valuable. Now let’s see China lose their capacity for evil space war actions.
Like those “accidents” in Iran that set back the nuclear program for years.
Finally the CIA did something valuable. Now let’s see China lose their capacity for evil space war actions.
Like those “accidents” in Iran that set back the nuclear program for years.
While it would be nice to credit the CIA, I suspect it is more likely Russian malfeasnce and shoddy maintence.
Suchomimus does a good job here explaining the details of what happened and he only takes 3 minutes to do it unlike other bloggers who feel they need to tell you every little detail of the matter before telling you what actually happened.
Launchpad 31/6 at Baikonur Cosmodrome collapsed, destroying the service cabin after the launch of a Soyuz rocket. The launchpad is the only one Russia has capable of manned space missions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kgIBg94FRE
Commnet on the video: So Russia has lost its Black Sea flagship, its laser plane, half its nuclear bomber fleet and now the ability for manned space flight? Still feeling like a superpower, Russia?
Elon is eclipsing the Russians; they need to up their game to be competitive with Space X (if it can be done).
Elon is eclipsing America. The last time NASA sent up astronauts they needed Elon to bring them back down. Bezos sends up tourists for a few minutes at a time.
Pretty sure this wasn’t hostile action. The blast deflector under the launch apparatus failed - that does happen from time to time. This is why Canaveral has several launch pads, as does Starbase in Texas, though they are tearing down OLP-1 at Starbase to rebuild it, in part because the blast deflector was having problems.
Bezos had his first fully orbital launch and orbiter landing this month. They’re no longer just doing suborbital tourist hops.
The Russian rocket and space programs have often compromised safety last aspect due to corruption, poor standards, shortcuts, incompetence, time pressure, and political meddling. Most spectacularly, in 1960, in the Nedelin catastrophe, an ICBM being tested prior to launch blew up on the pad at Baikonur and killed about a hundred technicians and officials — including the general in charge, Nedelin.
“Tourists” works, but “astrothots” is more descriptive.
This helpful graphic tells the tale. I hope Elon does a 2025 update in January.
Bezos had his first fully orbital launch and orbiter landing this month. They’re no longer just doing suborbital tourist hops.
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Took him long enough.
Hard to see how it could get that much damage in a launch with no damage to to rocket. There do appear to be a number of pre-existing holes in the ground around the site.
To be fair, he was spending more money and attention on engineering engines for other people to use in their rockets. United Launch Alliance gave up on their own engine development and gave Bezos a lot of money to develop the BE4 engine faster, so they could use it to fly Vulcan Centaur. Blue Origin doesn’t have any contracted schedules to hit for New Glenn, so it makes sense to shift focus when someone is paying you boatloads of money to do so.
The rocket launches from an elevated platform, the exhaust is fired through a hole in the platform that goes down into a duct system to move the exhaust away from the base of the rocket. Reflected exhaust is one reason why early rockets failed so often, so modern launch systems route the exhaust away. This requires blast deflection systems below the surface of the pad, and that’s what failed on the Russian pad.
To be fair, Blue Origin was delayed in getting here because ULA paid BO to develop their BE4 engine more, so ULA could use it to fly Vulcan Centaur. We *do* need competition in the space of, well, space, or we’re going to be right back to the bad old NASA days of overpriced, underdelivering, decade or more late garbage from the UniContractors.
The USSR had 15 lunch pads, but after the collapse it only had 2. Now only one for small payloads.
They claim they can rebuild it from spare parts eventually, but there is barely any money to keep the economy going let alone space ventures.
ISS and crews are on their own, until the pad is rebuilt sometime in the next 2 years. All the Russian maintenance for 40% of the Station is now in jeopardy. No more Soyus launches, only Dragon can access the station for crew transfer. There are some other vehicles that can bring up parts, but they cannot dock, are unloaded by the Arm, and are one way vehicles. Soyus also was responsible fore hauling away garbage and sewage - no longer.
The other heavy lift pad at Baikonur, that Gagarin launched from, is no longer maintained due to lack of funds.
The launch image has a problem - most if not all the other rockets reached orbit or beyond - SpaceX’s Starship has not reached orbit yet and should be excluded.
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