Russian rocket failure blamed on damaged sensor

MOSCOW— An space investigation has found a sensor that was damaged during assembly forced a Russian rocket to abort its trip two minutes after it was launched, a top official said Thursday.

The Soyuz-fg rocket carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin failed shortly into the Oct. 11 flight, sending their capsule into a sharp fall back to Earth. The two men landed safely despite the failed launch, the first of its kind for Russia’s manned program in over three decades.

Oleg Skorobogatov, who led the probe into the accident, told reporters Thursday that the investigation found that the sensor was damaged during the final assembly at the launch pad in Kazakhstan.

The last time Russia saw an aborted manned launch was in

1983, when two Soviet cosmonauts jettisoned and landed safely after a launch pad explosion.

Skorobogatov said officials are now taking steps, including putting all assembly staff through competence tests and additional training, to make sure such malfunctions don’t happen again.

Roscosmos officials on Wednesday met with their counterparts from NASA to give them a full briefing on the malfunction, Roscosmos director general Dmitry Rogozin said Thursday.

Russian space officials plan to conduct two unmanned Soyuz launches before launching a crew to the International Space Station.

The current space station crew — made up of NASA’S Serena Aunon-chancellor, Russian Sergei Prokopyev and German Alexander Gerst — was scheduled to return to Earth in December after a six-month mission but will have to stay there for at least an extra week or two to ensure a smooth carry-over before the new crew arrives in early December.