This Soyuz rocket launched from Site 31 at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Nov. 27, 2025, sending three astronauts toward the International Space Station. The blastoff left behind a damaged launch pad. (Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls) Late last year, a Soyuz rocket launched three astronauts to orbit from the Russia-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. But there was more "blast" to the Nov. 27 blastoff than intended. The launch damaged Site 31 at Baikonur, Russia's only active pad that supports crewed liftoffs to the International Space Station (ISS). As clean-up crews at the pad did their post-launch inspections, "damage to several launch pad components was identified," officials with Russia's space agency Roscosmos said in a statement at the time .…