Baikonur Cosmodrome severely damaged after failed Soyuz MS-28 launch

Baikonur Cosmodrome, one of the planet’s busiest launch sites, has sustained major damage following a failed Soyuz launch. Russia will almost certainly have to spend heavily to restore operations as quickly as possible.

Baikonur, in Kazakhstan, is the only Russian-operated certified site from which astronauts can be sent on crewed missions. It is therefore crucial to the country’s space programme, as well as to European and American missions. A Soyuz MS-28 launcher lifted off from the site a few days ago, on 27 November, but events did not unfold entirely as planned. The launch pad was severely damaged and cannot currently be used.

The incident will inevitably have worldwide repercussions, as the cosmodrome is regularly used to send astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). It is another serious setback for Russia, which is already facing substantial difficulties in managing its space programme.

A partially failed launch

Although the spacecraft reached the ISS safely, the real problem emerged after lift-off. Once the rocket was airborne, technicians and engineers realised that the launch had not proceeded normally. The mobile maintenance cabin, where teams prepare the launcher, had vanished from its usual position.

It was only found after a drone was sent to film the launch pad: it was lying crushed at the bottom of the flame trench (see photographs below). Every launch pad is fitted with this concrete structure so that the powerful blast from rockets does not damage anything at ground level. Its fall suggests that it gave way under the force of the launch, indicating that the ground support holding it in place failed to withstand the extreme vibrations generated by the Soyuz MS-28 engines.

According to Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, the fall “damaged numerous elements of the launch pad”. Officially, the agency says that “repairs will be carried out as quickly as possible”. However, space-sector experts quoted by NASASpaceflight, though not publicly identified, stated that the module cannot be recovered and will inevitably have to be replaced entirely.

Two comparable cabins have been built in recent years for other Soyuz launch pads, and each took almost two years to manufacture. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the pad damaged by the cabin will remain unusable for some time.

Baikonur Cosmodrome and the limits of alternative Soyuz pads

The cosmodrome is extensive and includes other sites suited to Soyuz spacecraft, namely LC-31/6 in the R-7 family. The issue is that they cannot accommodate crewed flights. They were designed for other kinds of missions and cannot under any circumstances be adapted to send crews into orbit. The damaged LC-1/5 pad was the complex’s only site currently authorised to meet the international safety standards required for human spaceflight, leaving Russia with severely limited options.

An accident with serious consequences

Since the invasion of Ukraine, relations between the United States and Russia have been at a low point, yet the ISS had remained an untouchable area of cooperation. The only two spacecraft capable of transporting crews there were Russia’s Soyuz and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon. Suspending Russian flights could therefore force NASA to reassess how ground missions are divided between Houston and Moscow, making it even more reliant on SpaceX while pushing Roscosmos into a secondary role.

The Russian agency says it has “all the elements necessary to restore the launch pad”, but these statements should be treated realistically rather than taken at face value. LC-1/5 will not be fixed with a coat of paint, and even if work proceeds at top speed, restoring it will take a long time. It should also be remembered that this launch pad, built under the Soviet Union, has never undergone genuine modernisation. Its maintenance system relies on components that are no longer manufactured or must be reproduced identically, which will automatically extend every timescale.

This setback forced Roscosmos to postpone its next launch by a year, Soyuz MS-33, which had been scheduled for 21 December. There is also a strong possibility that the launch due to take place on 14 July will meet the same fate. Russia has consequently been de facto stripped of its autonomy in crewed spaceflight, a setback it could well have done without given its current situation.