On This Day in Space! Sept. 26, 1983: Soyuz crew narrowly escapes rocket explosionOn Sept. 26, 1983, a Russian Soyuz rocket exploded on the launchpad. Two cosmonauts Vladimir Titov and Gennady Strekalov were inside their Soyuz T-10-1 spacecraft atop the rocket, and they barely made it out alive.
Titov and Strekalov's mission was intended to launch the cosmonauts from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the Salyut 7 space station. But about 90 seconds before their rocket was supposed to launch, a fire erupted on the launchpad.
Thankfully, the emergency escape system ejected their space capsule from the top of the rocket just two seconds before the fire caused the explosion. So far this has been the only time that a launch escape system had to be used.
Great Space
