Launch pad damaged as Russian rocket blasts off for space station, agency says
A launch pad at Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome space complex was damaged during Thursday’s launch of a Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russian cosmonauts and one American astronaut to the International Space Station.
The rocket launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on Nov. 27, carrying an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts.
(CNN) — A launch pad at Russia’s main space complex was damaged during Thursday’s launch of a mission carrying two Russians and an American to the International Space Station, Moscow’s space agency announced.
The Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft successfully docked with the space station and the three crew members had boarded, Roscosmos said.
But a post-launch inspection at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan revealed “damage to several elements of the launch pad,” according to a statement from Roscosmos, which still uses the space facility in its former Soviet neighbor.
“An assessment of the condition of the launch complex is currently underway,” it said, adding that all parts needed to repair the pad are available.
“The damage will be repaired in the near future.”
The launch pad contains support systems for the rocket and a structure that allows cosmonauts to access their capsule as it sits atop a Soyuz rocket.
The Soyuz-2.1a rocket with the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, carrying the crew formed of Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Sergei Mikaev and NASA astronaut Christopher Williams, blasts off to the International Space Station (ISS) from the launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on November 27, 2025. (Grigory Sysoev/Sputnik/AP via CNN Newsource)
Launch pads must be capable of withstanding extreme heat, air pressure and vibrations as a rocket takes flight.
Russian analysts said repairs to the launch pad could take a week or longer. And any lengthy delay could leave Russia unable to launch missions to the space station, they said.
“In the worst case this could seriously affect the rotation of crewed missions and cargo flights to the ISS,” analyst and blogger Georgy Trishkin wrote on Telegram.
Typically, ISS crew are launched roughly every six months from Baikonur.
“This is the only launch pad Roscosmos uses for the ISS program, and in the future it was supposed to be used for launches to the Russian Orbital Station,” commentator Vitaliy Egorov wrote on Telegram.
“In effect from this day Russia has lost the ability to launch humans into space, something that has not happened since 1961. Now it will be necessary to quickly repair this launch table or modernize another one,” Egorov wrote.
Besides Russia’s Soyuz craft, NASA uses SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft to take crew to the ISS.
The three men aboard the mission that lifted off Thursday join seven other crew already orbiting on the ISS.
Three are scheduled to return to Earth by December 8, according to NASA.
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