In November 2025, during the takeoff of a Russian rocket from Baikonur to the ISS, the 8U216 maintenance cabin fell from a significant height. Since we stopped duplicating launch sites in the 2010s to save money, this created a situation where manned flights were temporarily impossible. Now, just three months after the incident, Roscosmos was able to solve the problem by installing a spare maintenance cabin found in the warehouses of the Ministry of Defense. The spring launches to the ISS, which were previously planned, now have a chance to be completed on time.
The installation of the new cabin (produced in Soviet times, but installed for the first time) was carried out by more than 150 employees of the Center for the Operation of Ground-based Space Infrastructure Facilities (CENKI JSC) and contractors. The cabin has a mass of 144 tons and is large. The special complexity of the work was given by the fact that initially, during the construction of the launch pad, the cabin was installed before the installation of the firing opening for the rocket (it is located above the cabin). And now, to fix the situation faster, the spare cabin was installed indiscriminately in the firing opening. This required the creation of a special and previously unused installation technique through this opening.
Such an implementation of work with the maintenance cabin (its assembly on the ready-made launch pad) has never been used before
Image Source: Roscosmos
To understand the complexity of the task, it is worth considering that the cabin trusses are 19 meters long and weigh about 17 tons each. That is, they are larger than the diameter of the firing opening and simply lowering them through it (not at an angle) would not work. Therefore, suspension slings of different lengths and, accordingly, with different loads were used for different parts of the farms.
The spare cabin itself arrived at Baikonur a little over two months ago. After that, 2,350 square meters of structures were prepared and painted, and all fasteners were replaced. In addition, the cabin's electrical equipment was replaced and debugged, and more than 250 meters of welds were completed.
Typical Russian-language media headlines about the fall of cabin 8U216. CENKI managed to show how far this position is from reality
Image source: RTVI
Dmitry Bakanov, head of Roscosmos, noted: "Starting tomorrow, we will begin preparations for the launch of the Progress cargo ship, scheduled for March 22." This means that the previously scheduled flight dates to the ISS did not have to be postponed again. The work looks like a serious success, because previously most observers estimated the time frame for fixing problems with the maintenance cabin to be many months, and the time frame was often called a year or two.
It is difficult to overestimate the significance of what happened. Vostochny cosmodrome is not yet suitable for manned flights, therefore launch pad No. 31 at Baikonur was and remains the only place for Russian manned flights. Any serious incident here blocks such flights until the situation is corrected.
