| Incident | Date | Mission | Description |
| Separation failure | 12 April 1961 | Vostok 1 | After retrofire, the Vostok service module unexpectedly remained attached to the reentry module by a bundle of wires. The two halves of the craft were supposed to separate ten seconds after retrofire. But they did not separate until 10 minutes after retrofire, when the wire bundle finally burned through. The spacecraft went into wild gyrations at t |
| Landing capsule sank in water | 21 July 1961 | Mercury-Redstone 4 | After splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean, the hatch malfunctioned and blew prematurely, filling the capsule with water and almost drowning Gus Grissom, who managed to escape before it sank. Grissom then had to deal with a spacesuit that was rapidly filling with water, but managed to get into the helicopter's retrieval collar and was lifted to safety. |
| Space suit or airlock design fault | 18 March 1965 | Voskhod 2 | The mission featured the world's first spacewalk, by Alexei Leonov. After his twelve minutes outside, Leonov's space suit inflated in the vacuum to the point where he could not reenter the airlock. He opened a valve to allow some of the suit's pressure to bleed off, and was barely able to get back inside the capsule after suffering side effects of |
| Engine shutdown at launch | 12 December 1965 | Gemini 6A | The first on-pad shutdown in the U . human spaceflight program. Gemini 7 orbiting 185 miles (298 km) directly over Missile Row witnessed the event and reported they could clearly see the momentary exhaust plume before shutdown. |
| Equipment failure | 17 March 1966 | Gemini 8 | A maneuvering thruster refused to shut down and put their capsule into an uncontrolled spin. After the Gemini spun up to one revolution per second, Neil Armstrong regained control by switching from the main attitude control system to the reentry system. Mission rules required a landing as soon as possible once the reentry thrusters were used, caus |
| Separation failure | 18 January 1969 | Soyuz 5 | Harrowing reentry and landing when the capsule's service module initially refused to separate, causing the spacecraft to begin reentry faced the wrong way. The service module broke away before the capsule would have been destroyed, and so it made a rough but survivable landing far off course in the Ural Mountains. |
| Struck twice by lightning during launch | 14 November 1969 | Apollo 12 | Two lightning strikes during launch. The first strike, at 36 seconds after liftoff, knocked the three fuel cells offline and the craft switched to battery power automatically. The second strike, at 52 seconds after liftoff, knocked the onboard guidance platform offline. Four temperature sensors on the outside of the Lunar Module were burnt out and |
| Struck by camera during splashdown | 24 November 1969 | Apollo 12 | Astronaut Alan Bean was struck above the right eyebrow by a 16 mm movie camera when the spacecraft splashed down in the ocean. The camera broke free from its storage place. Bean suffered a concussion, and a 1 cm cut above the eyebrow that required stitches. |
| Premature engine shutdown | 11 April 1970 | Apollo 13 | During launch, the Saturn V second stage experienced a potentially serious malfunction when the center of its five engines shut down two minutes early. The remaining engines on the second and third stages were burned a total of 34 seconds longer to compensate, and parking orbit and translunar injection were successfully achieved. It was later deter |
| Equipment failure | 13 April 1970 | Apollo 13 | The crew came home safely after a violent rupture of a liquid oxygen tank deprived the Service Module of its ability to produce electrical power, crippling their spacecraft en route to the Moon. They survived the loss of use of their command ship by relying on the Lunar Module as a "life boat" to provide life support and power for the trip home. |
| One of three main parachutes failed | 7 August 1971 | Apollo 15 | During descent, the three main parachutes opened successfully. However, when the remaining reaction control system fuel was jettisoned, one parachute was damaged by the discarded fuel causing it to collapse. Spacecraft and crew still splashed down safely, at a slightly higher than normal velocity, on the two remaining main parachutes. If a second p |
| Separation failure | 5 April 1975 | Soyuz 18a | The mission nearly ended in disaster when the rocket suffered a second-stage separation failure during launch. This also interrupted the craft's attitude, causing the vehicle to accelerate towards the Earth and triggering an emergency reentry sequence. Due to the downward acceleration, the crew experienced an acceleration of 21 g rather than the |
| Chemical poisoning | 24 July 1975 | Apollo–Soyuz | During final descent and parachute deployment, the U . crew were exposed to 300 μL/L of toxic nitrogen tetroxide (Reaction Control System oxidizer) fumes venting from the spacecraft and reentering a cabin air intake, because a switch was left in the wrong position. 400 μL/L is fatal. Vance Brand lost consciousness for a short time. The crew member |
| Landing capsule sank in water | 16 October 1976 | Soyuz 23 | The capsule broke through the surface of a frozen lake and was dragged underwater by its parachute. The crew was saved after a very difficult rescue operation. |
| Engine malfunction | 12 April 1979 | Soyuz 33 | Engine failure forced the mission to be aborted. It was the first failure of a Soyuz engine during orbital operations. The crew, commander Nikolai Rukavishnikov and Bulgarian cosmonaut Georgi Ivanov, suffered a steep ballistic re-entry, but were safely recovered. |
| SRB ignition shock wave overpressure reached design limits of orbiter structure | 12 April 1981 | STS-1 | During launch, the Solid Rocket Booster ignition shock wave overpressure was four times greater than expected (2 psi or 14 kPa measured vs 0 psi or 3 kPa predicted). Some of the aft structures on Space Shuttle Columbia reached their design limits (2 psi) from the overpressure. The overpressure bent four struts that supported two RCS fuel ta |
| Fire in launch vehicle | 26 September 1983 | Soyuz T-10-1 | A fuel spillage before the planned liftoff caused the vehicle to be engulfed in flames. The crew was narrowly saved by the activation of their launch escape system, with the rocket exploding two seconds later. |
| Leaked hydrazine fuel fire and explosion | 8 December 1983 | STS-9 | In the last two minutes of the mission, during Space Shuttle Columbia's final approach to the Edwards AFB runway, hydrazine fuel leaked onto hot surfaces of two of the three onboard auxiliary power units (APU) in the aft compartment of the shuttle and caught fire. About 15 minutes after landing, hydrazine fuel trapped in the APU control valves expl |
| Space Shuttle in-flight engine failure | 29 July 1985 | STS-51-F | Five minutes and 45 seconds into ascent, one of three main engines aboard Challenger shut down prematurely due to a spurious high temperature reading. At about the same time, a second main engine almost shut down from a similar problem, but this was observed and inhibited by a fast acting flight controller. The failed SSME resulted in an Abort To O |
| Sensor failure | 6 September 1988 | Mir EP-3 | At the end of the mission, Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Lyakhov and Afghan cosmonaut Abdul Ahad Mohmand undocked from Mir in the spacecraft Soyuz TM-5. During descent they suffered a computer software problem combined with a sensor problem. The deorbit engine on the TM-5 spacecraft that was to propel them into atmospheric reentry, did not behave as ex |
| Thermal tile damage | 6 December 1988 | STS-27 | Space Shuttle Atlantis' Thermal Protection System tiles sustained unusually severe damage during this flight. Ablative insulating material from the right-hand solid rocket booster nose cap had hit the orbiter about 85 seconds into the flight, as seen in footage of the ascent. The crew made an inspection of the Shuttle's impacted starboard side usin |
| Space suit puncture | 8 April 1991 | STS-37 | During an extravehicular activity, a small stainless steel bar (palm bar) in a glove of EV2 astronaut Jay Apt's extravehicular mobility unit punctured the suit. The suit's pressure bladder and thin comfort glove conformed to the puncture and sealed it, preventing any detectable depressurization. Apt was unaware of the failure during the EVA, learni |
| Explosive release device punctured cargo bay bulkhead | 12 September 1993 | STS-51 | While releasing the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite from the payload bay, both the primary and backup explosive release devices detonated. Only the primary device was supposed to have detonated. Large metal bands holding the satellite in place were ripped away, causing flying debris. The debris punctured the orbiter's payload bay bulkh |
| Collision in space | 27 August 1994 | Mir | At Mir, during the 2nd docking attempt the Progress M-24 cargo freighter, the Progress freighter collided with the space station causing minor damage to the space station that was crewed at that time. |
| Eye injury from Mir exercise equipment | 18 May 1995 | Mir | While exercising on the EO-18/NASA 1/Soyuz TM-21 mission, astronaut Norman E. Thagard suffered an eye injury. He was using an exercise device, doing deep knee bends, with elastic straps. One of the straps slipped off of his foot, flew up, and hit him in the eye. Later, even a small amount of light caused pain in his eye. He said using the eye was, |
| Fire on board | 23 February 1997 | Mir | There was a fire on board the Mir space station when a lithium perchlorate canister used to generate oxygen leaked. The fire was extinguished after about 90 seconds, but smoke did not clear for several minutes. |
| Fuel cell failure | 8 April 1997 | STS-83 | Fuel cell aboard Space Shuttle Columbia unexpectedly failed on Day 4 in orbit, forcing an early end to the flight. The mission touched down safely, and the crew was reflown with the same mission plan on STS-94. |
| Collision in space | 25 June 1997 | Mir | At Mir, during a re-docking test with the Progress M-34 cargo freighter, the Progress freighter collided with the Spektr module and solar arrays of the Mir space station. This damaged the solar arrays and the collision punctured a hole in the Spektr module and the space station began depressurizing. The onboard crew of two Russians and one visiting |
| Main engine electrical short and hydrogen leak | 23 July 1999 | STS-93 | Five seconds after liftoff, an electrical short knocked out controllers for two shuttle main engines. The engines automatically switched to their backup controllers. Had a further short shut down two engines, Columbia would have ditched in the ocean, although the crew could have possibly bailed out. Concurrently a pin came loose inside one engine a |
| Toxic ammonia leak during EVA | 10 February 2001 | ISS/STS-98 | During EVA 1 on the mission, NASA astronauts Robert L. Curbeam and Thomas D. Jones were connecting cooling lines on the International Space Station while working to install the Destiny laboratory module. A defective quick-disconnect valve allowed 5% of the ammonia cooling supply to escape into space. The escaping ammonia froze on the spacesuit of a |
| Ballistic reentry, injured shoulder | 3 May 2003 | Soyuz TMA-1 | The capsule had a malfunction during its return to Earth from the ISS Expedition 6 mission and performed a ballistic reentry. The crew was subjected to about 8 to 9 Gs during reentry. The capsule landed 500 kilometres (310 mi; 270 nmi) from the intended landing target. In addition, after landing the capsule was dragged about 15 metres (49 ft) by it |
| Unplanned rolls during ascent | 29 September 2004 | SpaceShipOne-16P | On suborbital flight 16P, the first of two flights that won the X-Prize for exceeding 100 km (62 mi) in altitude, astronaut Mike Melvill experienced 29 unplanned rolls during and after powered ascent. The rolls began at 50 seconds into the engine burn. The burn was stopped 11 seconds early after burning a total of 76 seconds. After engine cutoff, t |
| Separation failure | 19 April 2008 | Soyuz TMA-11 | Reentry mishap similar to that suffered by Soyuz 5 in 1969. The service module failed to completely separate from the reentry vehicle and caused it to face the wrong way during the early portion of aerobraking. As with Soyuz 5, the service module eventually separated and the reentry vehicle completed a rough but survivable landing. Following the Ru |
| Aborted spacewalk after water leak in suit | 16 July 2013 | ISS Expedition 36 | During EVA-23, European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano reported that water was steadily leaking into his helmet. Flight controllers elected to abort the EVA immediately, and Parmitano made his way back to the Quest airlock, followed by fellow astronaut Chris Cassidy. The airlock began repressurizing after a 1-hour and 32 minute spacewalk, an |
| Hole detected in spacecraft | 30 August 2018 | Soyuz MS-09 | Ground controllers detected a dip in cabin pressure, which astronauts traced to a 2-millimeter hole in Soyuz MS-09, which was quickly patched up by Soyuz commander Sergey Prokopyev with epoxy. |
| Launch booster failure, ballistic re-entry | 11 October 2018 | Soyuz MS-10 | The crew reported feeling weightless; mission control declared a rocket had failed. An emergency was declared and the spacecraft carrying the crew was separated from the rocket. It returned to Earth in a ballistic descent (sharper than normal angle), and the crew experienced 6 G during the landing. The crew did not need immediate medical care whe |
| Air leak in space station | August 2020 | Expedition 63 | NASA reported an air leak from the International Space Station during Expedition 63. The source of the leak was traced to the Zvezda module, but its exact location was unknown. |
| Uncontrolled spin of Space Station | 29 July 2021 | Expedition 65 | NASA reported an uncontrolled spin event after docking of the Russian Nauka module that replaced Pirs. It appears that the module's onboard computers incorrectly determined that it was still in open space rather than docked and fired its thrusters. Controllers had to fire the thrusters on Progress to counteract the (270 degree) spin and bring the s |
| Coolant Leak | December 2022 – January 2023 | Expedition 68 Soyuz MS-22 | On December 14, 2022, Cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev were preparing for a spacewalk when a leak was detected on the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft. After inspection by Canadarm2 and the European Robotic Arm, NASA announced on December 19, 2022, "A small hole was observed, and the surface of the radiator around the hole showed discoloration" |
| Spacecraft struck by space debris | November 2025 | Shenzhou 20 | China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) reported a suspected strike on the Shenzhou 20 by “tiny space debris” has delayed the return of the Chinese spaceship Shenzhou-20 and three taikonauts Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie originally scheduled for November 5, 2025 from the Tiangong Space Station. |
| Launchpad service tower collapsed during launch | 27 November 2025 | Soyuz MS-28 | Roscosmos reported that the launch pad at Site 31 was damaged during the launch, with the mobile service platform beneath the pad appearing to have collapsed into the flame trench. The extent of the damage temporarily rendered Russia's only operational crewed launch facility unusable. The status of the next planned launch from the site, the Progres |
