The launch of a Russian spacecraft to the International Space Station was aborted at the last minute.
The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft was scheduled to lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with three astronauts from Russia, the United States and Belarus, but the flight was canceled just seconds before liftoff.
"Attention in the launch complex. There was an automatic cancellation of the launch. Bring the units of the launch complex to their initial state," the flight controller said in a live broadcast by the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
A separate NASA live broadcast of the planned launch said it was aborted 20 seconds before liftoff.
"This is Houston air traffic control. To recap: today's Soyuz MS-25 launch was aborted 20 seconds before liftoff. The reason is still unclear," the announcer explained.
It said the "start of the engine sequence" did not occur as expected, triggering an "automatic command to abort the countdown".
"The crew is safe aboard Soyuz MS-25. Work will now begin to evacuate the crew from the spacecraft and return them to the crew quarters at the Cosmonaut Hotel," the NASA spokesperson added.
There was no immediate comment from Roscosmos on what caused the mission to fail. /BGNES
