Soyuz Space Vehicle Designed to Safely Return Crew in Any Conditions – ASI

ROME (Sputnik) – The Russian Soyuz series of spacecraft, the launch of one of which accidentally failed on Thursday, are safe and have been designed to safely halt a mission and return a crew to Earth in any conditions, Roberto Battiston, the head of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) said.

"The Russian Soyuz spacecraft is the only vehicle which is currently able to send astronauts to space and bring them home form the International Space Station and it has been doing this for decades. It is designed to be very safe … You know the complexity of returning a capsule [with the crew] which should be jettisoned from the engine and land with the use of a parachute. Soyuz is designed for accomplishing the return in any conditions," Battiston said in a video address on Thursday.

Soyuz is able to affect the g-force, experienced by the crew, and halt a mission at any moment, according to Battiston.

On Thursday, an accident occurred during the liftoff of a Soyuz-FG launch vehicle carrying the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft with two new members of the International Space Station (ISS) crew on board — Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and NASA astronaut Nick Hague. The crew has safely returned to Earth in a jettisoned escape capsule.

The Russian space agency Roscosmos has launched an inquiry into the accident. A source at the Baikonur space center told Sputnik on Thursday that all Russian manned launches had been suspended after the Soyuz accident.

Russian Prime Minister Yury Borisov expressed hope that NASA would treat the situation with understanding.