Soyuz-U carried the European Space Agency's Foton-M No. 1 capsule, packed with 44 microgravity experiments, from Plesetsk. A Blok-D strap-on booster suffered an abnormal start and shut down about 8 seconds after liftoff; the vehicle broke apart near the pad, destroying the payload — the first R-7-family failure in the opening two minutes of flight since 1988.
- Outcome
- Failure
- Orbit
- LEO
- Low Earth orbit
- Payload to orbit
- Did not reach orbit
- Flight
- 58th
- of 70 Soyuz-U-PVB flights
- Date and time
- 15 October 2002, 18:20 UTC
- Rocket
- Soyuz-U-PVB
- Builder
- Progress RSC
- Launch site
- 43/3 (43L), Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russian Federation
- Payload
- Earth Science
- Launches in 2002
- 49th of 65