The launch of the Russian heavy rocket "Angara A-5" with the Orion upper stage and a test payload has been canceled from the Vostochny Cosmodrome. It was scheduled to take place at twelve o'clock in the afternoon Moscow time.
However, two minutes before the start, a command to abort the launch was issued live: the 761-ton Angara A-5 with a 22.1-ton upper stage remained on Earth. The reasons have not yet been named, and the time of the re-launch is unknown.
Angara A-5 is the first Russian heavy rocket that was to be launched from this cosmodrome, but far from the last. A separate launch complex was built from scratch for the Angara family.
These rockets, among other things, are entrusted with the task of transporting modules of the Russian Orbital Station into orbit and launching manned spacecraft to it. The management of Roscosmos plans to build about eight heavy Angara-A5 rockets plus a certain number of light Angara-1.2 rockets per year in the coming years.
It is worth noting that the launch at Vostochny is not the first one that has been canceled shortly before the start in recent times. At the end of March, the launch of the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft with an international crew was successfully carried out from Baikonur only on the second attempt.
Minutes before the launch from Baikonur, the first procedure for launching the spacecraft according to the schedule was automatically interrupted live in front of thousands of viewers.
Later, the head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, stated that an "abnormal situation" occurred at the final stage of pre-launch preparation. Its "cause was a voltage drop in the chemical current source." The start was postponed to a backup date and it was successful.