A faulty valve was discovered in a Soyuz rocket at Kourou spaceport and will be replaced before the launch, which is expected to take place, as scheduled, on November 29, a source in the space industry told Sputnik on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd November, 2020) A faulty valve was discovered in a Soyuz rocket at Kourou spaceport and will be replaced before the launch, which is expected to take place, as scheduled, on November 29, a source in the space industry told Sputnik on Monday.
The Russian rocket is set to launch an UAE satellite Falcon Eye-2.
"As Soyuz-ST-A rocket was being prepared for launch, a faulty valve was discovered at one of its boosters. It will be replaced with a new one, from another rocket, which is at the spaceport, too. It shouldn't impact the launch date of November 29," the source said.
According to the source, valves at other Soyuz rockets, wherever they are, will also be checked as a precaution.
The valve checks are the reason for delay of the launch of Russian satellites Gonets. Instead of November 28, their launch has been tentatively rescheduled for December 3.
Falcon Eye-2 was expected to launch in early March, but there was a delay due to issues with Fregat M upper stage, which had to be replaced. There were then some issues with the backup upper stage as well, which pushed the launch date to November.
Falcon Eye-2 reconnaissance satellite was made in Europe for the UAE. The launch of Falcon Eye-1 failed in July last year, because of the incident with Europe's Vega rocket.
