The third attempt was scheduled for April 11
General Director of the state corporation «Roscosmos» Yuri Borisov reported that the launch of the first launch vehicle, Angara-A5, scheduled for today, April 10, from the Vostochny Cosmodrome was postponed to April 11 due to technical reasons.
We are at the initial stage of flight testing of the development work «Amur». This stage is precisely intended to identify all the nuances that are possible: of a production, design, technological and operational nature. Therefore, for developers to cancel launches for technical reasons — this is a fairly common occurrence.
Yuri Borisov
According to him, yesterday’s launch cancellation was due to abnormal operation of the drain valve, after which all the necessary measures were developed, which made it possible to successfully complete this stage during today’s launch attempt. But a new technical problem emerged, which, according to the results of a preliminary analysis of telemetry, was associated with a failure in the engine start control system. Most likely, this is a software error that should be discovered today, the head of Roscosmos noted.
Borisov also said that irreversible processes requiring removal of the launch vehicle from the launch complex did not occur, therefore, with a high probability, after the conclusion of the state commission, the third launch attempt will take place tomorrow, April 11 at 12:00 Moscow time . With the first launch of «Angara-A5» Flight design tests of the new Amur complex, which includes both the launch vehicle itself and the cosmodrome infrastructure, also begin from Vostochny.