Russian investigators have concluded last month’s Soyuz MS-10 abort was caused by a sensor failure on one of the four Soyuz FG boosters. The sensor, which triggers LOX valves to vent on the top of the booster – allowing them to cleanly depart from the core – resulted in the booster sliding down the side of the core and rupturing the tank, causing the Soyuz FG to fail and the Soyuz MS-10 to conduct an emergency abort. A press conference blamed an “error during assembly” of the launch vehicle as the root cause.
