After a decade Russia’s native-built Soyuz 5 rocket finally reaches the launch site

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Western market for satellite launches dried up.

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[DistinctivelyCanuck]

Any knowledge as why this isn’t using Vostochny as launch pad? I can understand Baikonur for launches to the ISS but this isn’t intended for that and is no more a Soyuz family rocket than any other random rocket.

Unless it’s part of a strategy of keeping diversity, in launch site as well as launcher families.

Edit; I can answer my own question. It’s using the old Zenit launchpad 45 at Baikonur, which is presumably cheaper than building a new one and needs little modification.

There's also the issue that anything at Vostochny takes 10X as long and 20X as expensive due to, well, 'reasons'

 

[wagnerrp]

So the Russian made Zenit is finally about to fly again. Old is new when it's made in Russia. It is an improvement in that it carries 80 tons more fuel in the first stage and has a more efficient second stage giving it about 30 percent more payload than Zenit had, but I still don't see anyone besides Russia using it.

The Soviet Zenit. It's a Ukrainian rocket, designed by Yuzhnoye in Dnipro. It's an "improvement" in that they've removed all parts of Ukrainian origin, so they can actually start using it again. The extra 80t isn't (only) a first stage stretch. The majority of the mass comes from a much larger second stage, derived from the Soyuz 2 upper stage.

 

[wagnerrp]

and is no more a Soyuz family rocket than any other random rocket.

It's every bit as much a Soyuz as Delta IV was a Delta.

 

[Lacedaemon]

Everyday Astronaut's vid on Russian engines was stellar, now I know too much about the NK-33.

But, even if he did a vid on Russian rockets, I don't think anyone would get it the point of their strategy: "Let's keep making new old rockets, or something"

The point is avoiding the admission that they can’t build a competitive modern SLV and that technology has moved far enough that their Soviet heritage is becoming irrelevant to the point that their Space industry is no longer internationally significant.

 

[hector elonsapedo]

I love when the publically released images have blatant safety issues...

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Hot-staging-640x427.jpg

I just like those slick engineering duds. Bet that guy gets laid a lot ,,

 

[EvolvedMonkey]

It's every bit as much a Soyuz as Delta IV was a Delta.

This is true. My thoughts were that if it had been similar to Soyuz 2 for its first stage then that might have explained the launch site selection, which is not the case.

 

[uhuznaa]

Breaking news: It seems that after the launch of Soyuz MS-28 today the service structure collapsed at pad 31 in Baikonur.

https://unn.ua/en/news/damage-at-ba...ly-lost-the-ability-to-send-people-into-space

This is the only pad Russia can launch crews to the ISS from.

Can't confirm this from other sources right now though.

 

[Wickwick]

Breaking news: It seems that after the launch of Soyuz MS-28 today the service structure collapsed at pad 31 in Baikonur.

https://unn.ua/en/news/damage-at-ba...ly-lost-the-ability-to-send-people-into-space

This is the only pad Russia can launch crews to the ISS from.

Can't confirm this from other sources right now though.

I wonder if NASA will return the favor of launching cosmonauts to the ISS for $90M per seat.

 

[Ax6502]

Breaking news: It seems that after the launch of Soyuz MS-28 today the service structure collapsed at pad 31 in Baikonur.

https://unn.ua/en/news/damage-at-ba...ly-lost-the-ability-to-send-people-into-space

This is the only pad Russia can launch crews to the ISS from.

Can't confirm this from other sources right now though.

https://theins.ru/news/287217
Translation of 1st paragraph:

"On November 27, the spacecraft 'Soyuz MS-28' launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome with a crew consisting of cosmonauts Kud-Sverchkov, Mikaev, and astronaut Lee Williams, heading to the ISS. During the post-flight inspection, it was revealed that the gas jet from the first-stage engine of the rocket had torn off a fragment of Launch Complex No. 6 at Site No. 31."

 

[AverageDutchGuy]

Here's another source on the collapse of the service platform:
https://www.russianspaceweb.com/baikonur_r7_31.html#cabin

 

[wagnerrp]

I wonder if NASA will return the favor of launching cosmonauts to the ISS for $90M per seat.

Be generous. They can start at the same $32M/seat, and ramp up to $115/seat (inflation adjusted) after a flight or two.

More realistically, MS28 is going to be on that station until they can launch again, and NASA is going to have to spare a sear on the next Dragon to bring Lee down.

 

[EllPeaTea]

Be generous. They can start at the same $32M/seat, and ramp up to $115/seat (inflation adjusted) after a flight or two.

More realistically, MS28 is going to be on that station until they can launch again, and NASA is going to have to spare a sear on the next Dragon to bring Lee down.

Soyuz flights are now staying on station for 8 months. But I think they also use that pad for Progress. Which means no Russian resupply, and also reduced attitude control on station. I wonder if they could launch Progress from the new Soyuz pad in Vostochny?

 

[Cthel]

Soyuz flights are now staying on station for 8 months. But I think they also use that pad for Progress. Which means no Russian resupply, and also reduced attitude control on station. I wonder if they could launch Progress from the new Soyuz pad in Vostochny?

Isn't the Soyuz on-station duration limited by the breakdown of the high-test peroxide it needs for the deorbit burn?

 

[EllPeaTea]

Isn't the Soyuz on-station duration limited by the breakdown of the high-test peroxide it needs for the deorbit burn?

Yes. But they've just started doing 8 month rotations. But I think the deorbit burn is done by the service module which uses NTO/UDMH thrusters. The peroxide is used for attitude control of the descent module after separation.

 

[beb01]

I always kind of thought the Angara family was a neat way to cover a wide range of launch needs. You build one small launcher than bundle three for a medium launcher and five for a heavy LV. Then I heard that SpaceX had to reinforce the core stage for the Falcon Heavy because of the way the outboard rockets would compress the center unit, Once you have to build core and outboard rockets differently there doesn't seem much advantage to tricore or pentacore LV.

 

[wagnerrp]

I always kind of thought the Angara family was a neat way to cover a wide range of launch needs. You build one small launcher than bundle three for a medium launcher and five for a heavy LV. Then I heard that SpaceX had to reinforce the core stage for the Falcon Heavy because of the way the outboard rockets would compress the center unit, Once you have to build core and outboard rockets differently there doesn't seem much advantage to tricore or pentacore LV.

You don't have to do it that way. You can build all cores reinfored, and suffer the performance loss that results. That's what Delta IV did. Energia used Zenit first stages as boosters. Vega used a first stage derived from a Ariane 5 booster, and Vega-C uses the actual boosters from Ariane 6. OmegA (worst name, ever) would have used stages derived from STS/SLS. Reusing parts of one rocket to build another smaller rocket isn't a fundamentally bad idea. The problem is that it all falls apart under reuse. Your boosters stage early, and are "easy" to recover. The presence of boosters means the core stages that much later, higher, and faster, making it that much harder to recover. If you never intend to recover the center (Energia), then that's fine.

Pentacore has other problems. Single core and tri-core can use the same infrastructure. You have one, or three in a line, and you can just pivot them up the same way at the launch pad. With five cores, that pivoting maneuver gets complicated, and the structure to pivot over gets complicated. Soyuz is always a tri-core, but with Angara, you have options for one and three core that don't need all that extra effort. You either need multiple independent sets of infrastructure, or you need to build and transport vertically. Either is going to result in trouble and cost.

 

[Ted.Starchild]

Soyuz flights are now staying on station for 8 months. But I think they also use that pad for Progress. Which means no Russian resupply, and also reduced attitude control on station. I wonder if they could launch Progress from the new Soyuz pad in Vostochny?

Baikonur is more than launch site collection. Complex payloads like Soyuz normally require very specific pre-processing facilities. Russia may have some vague plans to launch manned spacecraft from Vostochny but in reallity Baikonur pad repairs should be faster solution.

 

[algebraist]

And now Scott Manley has info on the pad:
View: https://youtube.com/shorts/-DYohQJDboM?si=fxw6v196QJsl6lAo

 

[nimelennar]

And now Scott Manley has info on the pad:
View: https://youtube.com/shorts/-DYohQJDboM?si=fxw6v196QJsl6lAo

Jeez, I don't think I understood the scale of what got wrecked before.

This is almost like if they drove a mobile launch platform or transporter-erector off of the side of a small building. That's not something that'll just buff out.

 

[Hydrargyrum]

Jeez, I don't think I understood the scale of what got wrecked before.

This is almost like if they drove a mobile launch platform or transporter-erector off of the side of a small building. That's not something that'll just buff out.

Hmm I wonder if it was driven off the end of its track, or if the structure holding it up failed, either on the “service cab” side, or on the stationary launch platform side. The difficulty of the repair might be substantially worsened if the structure it’s supposed to hang from has failed.

 

[Hydrargyrum]

The statement that the “gas jet had torn off a fragment of the launch platform” almost sounds like they launched with the service cab still in the path of the exhaust stream, rather than safely pulled out of the way, but it’s hard to imagine that there’s no safeguards against that. Sadly I suppose we’re probably not going to ever see a fault root cause analysis.

 

[EllPeaTea]

The statement that the “gas jet had torn off a fragment of the launch platform” almost sounds like they launched with the service cab still in the path of the exhaust stream, rather than safely pulled out of the way, but it’s hard to imagine that there’s no safeguards against that. Sadly I suppose we’re probably not going to ever see a fault root cause analysis.

Katya Pavlushchenko was saying that the service room was retracted in to the correct position, but it looks like the locking mechanism that keeps it in place may have failed.

 

[Cthel]

[snip]

Pentacore has other problems. Single core and tri-core can use the same infrastructure. You have one, or three in a line, and you can just pivot them up the same way at the launch pad. With five cores, that pivoting maneuver gets complicated, and the structure to pivot over gets complicated. Soyuz is always a tri-core, but with Angara, you have options for one and three core that don't need all that extra effort. You either need multiple independent sets of infrastructure, or you need to build and transport vertically. Either is going to result in trouble and cost.

Do you mean Soyuz is always a penta-core?

 

[Hydrargyrum]

Katya Pavlushchenko was saying that the service room was retracted in to the correct position, but it looks like the locking mechanism that keeps it in place may have failed.

I see. Considering that the storage alcove is on the opposite side of the exhaust plume from the flame pit where it ended up, if it was sucked out of its alcove by pressure interactions with the exhaust plume, it must have gotten thoroughly toasted on the way through. It certainly looks pretty crispy in that one grainy, low-res drone image that's in all the coverage I've seen.

 

[mihail_pramatarov]

It's 4m across and masses ten tons. It's big and powerful, but it's also big and heavy. Nine Merlins or three Raptors could each produce the same thrust in a smaller footprint and half the mass.

and the shared turbopump of rd-17, isnt that a single failure point for 4 thrust chambers?

 

[mihail_pramatarov]

You fundamentally misunderstand what Russia is.
Russia has no neighbor. It only has an ever expanding border.
Russia is not a country, it's a tumor.

amen to that...and communism is a terrorist/fanatic doctrine.

 

[r0twhylr]

Leaning forward away from the angle of the ladder was my immediate concern with half of your foot on the rung. Normally the point of a ladder like that is to be on the platform and have the handrails to keep you from falling and being able to use both hands to work. This platform isn't even really large enough to do that, even if he was at that level.

The shoes don't look great to me as well but it's hard to say what the risks/concerns are for that site. Could be they wear those for some other reason?

/Not a safety professional but if he was on my site I'd be looking for a better way to do that job

I'm not a safety professional either, but I don't see any nearby windows to fall out of, so he probably figures he's safe.

 

[Wickwick]

I see. Considering that the storage alcove is on the opposite side of the exhaust plume from the flame pit where it ended up, if it was sucked out of its alcove by pressure interactions with the exhaust plume, it must have gotten thoroughly toasted on the way through. It certainly looks pretty crispy in that one grainy, low-res drone image that's in all the coverage I've seen.

Good ol’ Bernoulli equation at work. The (very) high speed gas flowing past is much lower pressure than stagnant air.

 

[Cthel]

Good ol’ Bernoulli equation at work. The (very) high speed gas flowing past is much lower pressure than stagnant air.

There's a blast shield attached to the platform that closes off the storage alcove when the rocket is launched. https://www.russianspaceweb.com/vostochny_soyuz_ko.html

I wonder why that didn't work on this launch when it worked on previous ones...

 

[Bill Swallow]

There's a blast shield attached to the platform that closes off the storage alcove when the rocket is launched. https://www.russianspaceweb.com/vostochny_soyuz_ko.html

I wonder why that didn't work on this launch when it worked on previous ones...

Poor / No maintenance? Usually a safe guess.

 

[EllPeaTea]

Some better photos of the service platform.

Spoiler: Tweet with photos

View: https://x.com/katlinegrey/status/1994420759138107881

 

[algebraist]

Hmm I wonder if it was driven off the end of its track, or if the structure holding it up failed, either on the “service cab” side, or on the stationary launch platform side. The difficulty of the repair might be substantially worsened if the structure it’s supposed to hang from has failed.

Crazy drunk Russians didn't put a locking pin in place apparently.

 

[Errum]

Some better photos of the service platform.

Spoiler: Tweet with photos

View: https://x.com/katlinegrey/status/1994420759138107881

Yikes! The front fell off.

 

[YetAnotherBoris]

Some better photos of the service platform.

Spoiler: Tweet with photos

View: https://x.com/katlinegrey/status/1994420759138107881

Wow... Somehow, I doubt they actually have a backup copy of that whole thing sitting somewhere in storage. This is something they'll have to build again from scratch.

On a slightly unrelated note, the concrete looks rather worse for wear in places (lots of spalling, some cracking, etc.) Also a bit puzzling how it's seemingly built up from rather small rectangular patches, instead of larger, more monolithic pours.

 

[EllPeaTea]

Wow... Somehow, I doubt they actually have a backup copy of that whole thing sitting somewhere in storage. This is something they'll have to build again from scratch.

On a slightly unrelated note, the concrete looks rather worse for wear in places (lots of spalling, some cracking, etc.) Also a bit puzzling how it's seemingly built up from rather small rectangular patches, instead of larger, more monolithic pours.

They used to have 2 pads at Baikonur for Soyuz, and they mothballed the other one a few years ago. Don't know if that might have a spare one sitting around.

 

[EllPeaTea]

New article from Eric on the Soyuz launch pad:
https://meincmagazine.com/space/2025/...aises-concerns-about-future-of-space-station/

 

[Atterus]

I have a plan for an alternative: let Ukraine replace Russian launch operations. No more reliance on a hyper corrupt regime that sometimes holds space assets hostage and weaponized space.

Let's not forget that despite the lip service about how awful Russia is, many in Western Europe are footing Putins war bills still. Buying rides on Russian rockets is more of the same.

Either we want Russias barbarism to collapse, or we dont. I dont care what it is, Putin and his vision of Russia deserve not even a thread of a lifeline to survive the impacts of the war he started.

 

[Bill Swallow]

I have a plan for an alternative: let Ukraine replace Russian launch operations. No more reliance on a hyper corrupt regime that sometimes holds space assets hostage and weaponized space.

Let's not forget that despite the lip service about how awful Russia is, many in Western Europe are footing Putin's war bills still. Buying rides on Russian rockets is more of the same.

Either we want Russia's barbarism to collapse, or we don't. I don't care what it is, Putin and his vision of Russia deserve not even a thread of a lifeline to survive the impacts of the war he started.

Because Ukraine doesn't have anything better to focus its effort and resources on, right?

 

[Torbjörn Larsson OM]

Apparently Soyuz 5 will launch from the old Zenith launch platform Site 45, not the broken Soyuz 2 platform Site 31.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irtysh_(rocket)

So while Russia may have saved their space "trampoline", they have potentially broken ISS.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin suggests that NASA "bring their astronauts to the International Space Station using a trampoline."

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/u...n-official-tells-nasa-take-flying-leap-n92616

However, Site 31 at Baikonur is the country’s only pad presently configured to handle launches of the Soyuz rocket and two spacecraft critical to the space station, the cargo-only Progress vehicle and the Soyuz crew capsule.

But long-term it is not immediately clear whether US vehicles could completely make up for the loss of Progress vehicles.

https://meincmagazine.com/space/2025/...aises-concerns-about-future-of-space-station/

Crazy drunk Russians didn't put a locking pin in place apparently.

An expensive pin:

"There is some possibility that duplicate hardware could be borrowed from the mothballed Site 1 in Baikonur or from similar facilities at other launch sites," wrote journalist Anatoly Zak on his Russian Space Web site. "According to preliminary estimates, repairs of the service platform, known as 8U0216, could take up to two years."

https://www.space.com/space-explora...uz-crew-launch-to-international-space-station

 

[Nick31]

and the shared turbopump of rd-17, isnt that a single failure point for 4 thrust chambers?

A "single point of failure" was the exact phrase that went through my mind when I read that the first stage was a single massive engine.